The Virgin mother, retreat addresses on the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary as told in the Gospels, with an appended essay on the virgin birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ;

iBERKELElTN
LIBRARY

NiVERSITY OF J
CALIFORNIA^/

THE VIRGIN MOTHER

THE VIRGIN MOTHER

RETREAT ADDRESSES

ON

THE LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

AS TOLD IN THE GOSPELS

With an appended Essay on the Virgin Birth
of our Lord Jesus Christ

BY THE

RT. REV. A. C. A. HALL, D.D.

Bishop of Vermont

NEW YORK
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

AND LONDON
I894

COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

THE CAXTON PRESS
NEW >ORK

CONTENTS

ON THE LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

PAGE

I. THE PREDESTINATION OF THE VIRGIN

MOTHER i

II. HER TRAINING FOR HER VOCATION . 20

III. THE ANNUNCIATION 39

IV. THE VISITATION 58

V. THE BIRTH OF OUR LORD JESUS

CHRIST 76

VI. THE PURIFICATION 101

VII. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT . . . .120
VIII. THE LOSING AND FINDING OF THE

HOLY CHILD 141

IX. THE MARRIAGE FEAST AT CANA . .162
X. THE VIRGIN MOTHER AT THE CROSS . 186
XI. THE VIRGIN MOTHER WAITING FOR

THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST . 205

357

PREFACE.

I HAVE been repeatedly urged to publish
these Meditations, which in substance have
been several times given in Retreats for
Women on both sides of the Atlantic. I
had thought to write out the Addresses
afresh from notes taken on different oc-
casions, but this has proved impossible. The
notes which were taken with considerable
fulness, but by no means verbatim, at a
Retreat for the Guild of the Epiphany (a
society of Churchwomen engaged in educa-
tional work), in the Chapel of the Sisters of
Bethany, London, in January, 1892, are here
printed, after careful revision as regards

vii

Vlll PREFACE.

their matter, but with manifold imperfection
of literary form.

However, the Addresses are intended
now, as when delivered, to serve as sugges-
tions for meditation and prayer, rather than
as finished discourses. In this way I trust
they may prove helpful.

The Essay on the Virgin birth of our
Lord Jesus Christ, which is printed as an
appendix, was written for a clerical society
in the spring of 1891, and was published
at that time in The Church Eclectic. It
gives the grounds for accepting the literal
statement of the Creed which is taken for
granted in the Meditations.

A. C. A. H.

BURLINGTON, VERMONT,
August, 1894.

INTRODUCTORY MEDITATION.

THE PREDESTINATION OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

WE will take for the general subject of
our Retreat, as the starting-point of our
Meditations, the life of the Blessed Virgin
Mother, as presented to us in the pages of
the Gospels.

So we will think in our several medita-
tions of different scenes and mysteries in
her life, as recorded in the Gospels; of her
Predestination; her Training for the mani-
festation of God's high purpose; of the
Annunciation by the Angel; of her Visita-
tion; of the Birth of the Holy Child and the
accomplishment of the Mystery of the Incar-
nation ; of her Purification and the Presenta-
tion of her Child in the Temple; of the
Flight into Egypt, and the return to Naza-
reth; of the scene in the Temple when her
Child was twelve years old. Then we will

THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

think of her at the beginning of His Minis-
try, at the Marriage Feast at Cana of Galilee;
of her standing at the foot of the Cross; of
the absence of her name from those to whom
the Lord showed Himself after His Resur-
rection; and, lastly, we will take leave of
her in the Upper Chamber, waiting on her
knees in prayer for the gift of the Holy
Ghost.

And in thus directing our thoughts to her,
it will not be so much with the view of con-
sidering her unique and personal honour,
but, rather, of regarding her as the type and
pattern of the Church collectively and of
every individual soul in whom Christ is to be
born by the Spirit's power.

So does our blessed Lord place her before
us. You will remember how it is told us by
St. Luke* that, when He was preaching to
the multitude, a woman, struck by the
power and beauty of His teaching, ex-
claimed with enthusiasm: " Blessed is the
womb that bare Thee, and the paps which
Thou hast sucked!" — and how our Lord

* St. Luke xi. 27, 28.

HER PREDESTINATION.

turned the encomium pronounced on His
Mother:— " Yea, rather," He says, "blessed
are they that hear the Word of God
and keep it." He is not denying His
Mother's honour, but only referring, that
honour and praise to its truest, deepest
cause.

Thus St. Augustine says, " She is more
blessed in that she bore Christ in her heart
by faith, than in that she conceived Him in
her womb according to the flesh." And
St. Ambrose, "According to the flesh, the
Mother of Christ is but one; according to
the Spirit, the fruit which all bear is Christ."
And so you will remember on another occa-
sion, where our Lord is told that His Mother
and His brethren are standing without, de-
siring to speak with Him, He asks, "Who is
My mother, and who are My brethren?"
And, then lifting up His hands over His dis-
ciples, He says: "Whosoever shall do the
will of My Father which is in Heaven, the
same is My brother and sister and
mother ; " * at once repudiating any merely
* St. Matt. xii. 46-50.

THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

natural relationship that would interfere with
His Heavenly Father's work, and at the
same time declaring that all may have a
share in Mary's highest prerogative.

Joy to be the Mother of the Lord,

And thine the truer bliss,
In every thought, and deed, and word,

To be forever His.

Ave Maria ! thou whose name
All but adoring love may claim,

Yet may we reach thy shrine;
For He, thy Son and Saviour, vows
To crown all lowly, lofty brows

With love and joy like thine.

Bless'd is the womb that bare Him — bless'd
The bosom where His lips were press' d,

But rather bless'd are they
Who hear His word and keep it well,
The living homes where Christ shall dwell

And never pass away. *

I. It is in this light that we are
going to think of the Blessed Virgin —
as the pattern and figure of all the faith-
ful; for consider (and we will take this

* Christian Year. Poem for the Annunciation.

HER PREDESTINATION.

as the first point in our meditation) how
all the mysteries of Our Lord's Incar-
nate Life are intended to have their counter-
part in the spiritual experience of the faith-
ful. Remember how constantly this thought
is brought before us in the Collects of the
Prayer Book, e. g. in those for the Annun-
ciation, Christmas, Easter Eve, and the
Ascension. For us He was born, that we
might be re-born in Him ; for us He died,
that we might die with Him to sin and the
world and self; for us He rose, that in Him
we might rise to newness of life; for us He
ascended, that with Him we might also
in heart and mind thither ascend, and with
Him continually dwell. So, pre-eminently,
in the mystery of the Incarnation, Mary's
name stands in the Creed, not merely as one
honoured above all women, but as the pattern
of all in her humility, purity and obedience,
which made her meet to conceive Christ by
the Spirit's power, to become the Mother of
the Lord.

And this very mystery of the Incarnation
is to be re-enacted in our own experience.

THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

How is that? The Son of God, One with
the Father, becoming Man, one of us, of
Mary's substance, by the Spirit's power, is
to be born in us ! What is our Christian life
for — what are all the Sacraments for, but for
this, that the Glorified Incarnate Son may
take of our substance, our nature, our tal-
ents, and may be born in us by grace, that
we may have His Life reproduced in us ?
Nothing short of the Life of the Eternal Son
of God — the Holiness, the Purity of God, is
the standard at which we are to aim ; that is
to be reproduced in our circumstances: the
Divine Perfections are to be translated, re-
produced in our life, our home, our trials,
our difficulties, our age of the world; He is
to be really and truly Incarnate of our sub-
stance ! Ah ! see how the Incarnation really
gives to us the standard of Christian life.

And this is to be true of every individual
experience; not only of the Church, but of
each one of us. Let us ask ourselves, What
is the special likeness of Christ that He
would reproduce in me ? What are the fea-
tures of His Life that He calls me to imi-

HER PREDESTINATION.

tate ? What pattern would He set before
me in my work, my circumstances, my
difficulties ? What are the inspirations of
grace that He would urge me to cultivate
and cherish ? Ah ! I come into Retreat
to see how this is to be carried out, how His
Life is to be re-enacted more truly than ever
in my experience — how He is to be born in
me by the Spirit's power.

So we are to think how the Mysteries of
Our Lord's Incarnate Life are to have their
counterpart in our own spiritual experience.

II. Consider, secondly, Mary's predestina-
tion and ours.

1 ' Known unto God are all His works from
the beginning of the world."* It was prob-
ably God's original, eternal purpose that
His Son should become Incarnate and
assume our human nature, quite apart from
the after necessity of restoring that nature,
of the beating down of man's foes, and of
making reparation for the offence against
the Divine Majesty. We may believe that
* Acts xv. 18.

THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

it had ever been the will of the Eternal
Word to become man, to unite the creature
with the Creator, to manifest Himself in the
flesh. He had manifested Himself in nature
already; He willed a further manifestation
of Himself in man, whom He had made "in
His image and likeness;"* in "the fulness
of time" He meant to be born in man's
nature, and in it to accomplish the Divine
purpose in its fulness, to act out the Divine
Perfections in human circumstances.

And then sin came in and modified that
original plan, of Almighty God. It still held
on, but oh, what a change was rendered nec-
essary in the accomplishment of God's Pur-
pose ! Think what it would have been, had
there been no sin to meet, to make repara-
tion for. Think how the whole Life of the
Incarnate Son would have been one unbroken
joy; using all His faculties in carrying out
the Father's will; ruling all the world
according to the Father's pleasure ! But sin
came in ; and it must be conquered, at what-
ever cost; the ruined nature must be re-
* Gen. i. 26.

HER PREDESTINATION.

paired, Satan's chains wrenched apart; the
Seed of the woman must crush the serpent's
head, at the expense of His own heel
being bruised in the encounter; He must
do battle with our spiritual foes and set us
free.

But God's purpose lasts on; the same re-
sult is attained in the end, though by a dif-
ferent route. Instead of being a Man of Joy
from the Cradle to the Ascension, He became
* ' a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with
grief," * until the battle had been fought out
and redemption won, and He "was crowned
with glory and honour."!

Ah! and just so must it be in our own
experience. God had a purpose for each one
of us, a work for each one to do, a place for
each one to fill, an influence for each one to
exert, a likeness to His dear Son for each
one to manifest, and, then, a place for each
one to fill in His holy Temple. And His
purpose for us was clear from all eternity;
He saw it at the Font of regeneration, when
He started us on our course; and then, —

* Isaiah liii. 3. f Ps. viii. 5 ; Heb. ii. 8-io.

io THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

alas ! alas ! how have we to lament the loss
and the misuse of those gifts of nature and
of grace! How have we thwarted God's
purpose, come short of His expectation !

Yet He has not cast us off with our sin;
" He has devised means that His banished
be not expelled from Him."* And, as He
devises means whereby the fallen race may
be brought back to Him through the Passion
of His Incarnate Son; so, in individual lives,
the path of penitence is necessary; we have
to struggle on, in our individual experience,
as did once our great Representative. We
have to come back; God will accomplish His
original purpose, though He will modify
and adapt His plan. His purpose lasts on ;
we must rise to that in the end, or who can
say that He will not cast us away ? We may
not say, " God's purpose is too high for me;
I cannot rise to it; I will take something
else ! That which I might have risen to so
easily, had I been faithful to His inspira-
tions, docile to the indications of His will,
. within and without, is too great for me

*2 Sam. xiv. 14.

HER PREDESTINATION: 11

now ! " Alas ! we have to climb a rough
path now, to travel by a more circuitous
road; but it will lead to the same goal at
last. Praise to His Name ! He did not cast
us off —

When all was sin and shame
A second Adam to the fight
And to the rescue came ! *

It is just the same with our own individual
lives. Penitence, then, and Hope, we may
take as the primary lesson of our Retreat.
In our self-examination let us see how far,
how sadly far, we have failed to correspond
with what we knew to be His will for us.
Well might we become discouraged and
reckless as we look back. But no ! Hope
comes in to save us from the snare. As a
means of reconciliation the Passion of the
Incarnate Son came in to accomplish God's
purpose and original plan for man. Even
so His purpose for me lasts on and shall be
accomplished; through penitence and strug-
gle the likeness of the Eternal Son shall be
fashioned in me.

* " Dream of Gerontius^ By J. H. Newman.

12 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

III. Once more. Think of God's purpose
standing sure and being accomplished, in
spite of long delay and many apparent dis-
appointments and reverses. The promise of
the Redeemer, "the Seed of the woman,"*
Who should reverse the defeat which our first
parents had sustained at the hands of the
enemy, given along with the sentence pro-
nounced on man's disobedience and sin, is
clung to by Eve; when Cain was born, she
thought, ' ' I have gotten The Man from the
Lord " f — that seed to which He pointed.
Ah ! what disappointment ! In Cain she sees
but the aggravation of her own sin; the
parents had broken away from love to God,
their child from love to his brother. So sin
spreads.

So think, as sin becomes worse and worse,
how the promise seems further and further
off. Yet by the Prophets it is made more
and more clear as time goes on. Though
so long delayed, in the end the promise of
God is found to have stood firm, the "Seed
of the woman," the Virgin-born appears;

* Gen. iii. 15. f Gen. iv. I.

HER PREDESTINATION. 13

God has been true to Hi£ word. Man needs
to have patience, to be subjected to long dis-
cipline ; but God never takes back His word.
Remember that text at the beginning of St.
John's Gospel, commonly misunderstood as it
stands in our ordinary version : " The light
shineth in darkness, and the darkness com-
prehended it not." * We ordinarily under-
stand it of the darkness not taking in the light
— not comprehending it — not assimilating it.
Of course darkness cannot assimilate light,
or it would cease to be darkness. The right
meaning is, "the light shineth in the dark-
ness, and the darkness overcame it not " — as
we read in the margin of the Revised Ver-
sion, "did not overtake it" The idea is of
a little flame shining in the darkness, and
the gloom around seeming now and again to
threaten .to extinguish it. But it is not over-
whelmed, it shines on ; and at last the light
blazes forth and illuminates the world. Yes;
the Word of God is "the light which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world, "f
He shines, however dimly, in every man's

* St. John i. 5. t St- John i- 9-

14 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

reason and conscience, amid all their dark-
ness, prejudice, disobedience and sin, while
it seems continually as if the darkness were
about to extinguish that little flickering
spark of light. So was it with God's prom-
ise. At the time of the Flood all flesh had
"corrupted his way upon the earth,"* and
yet God's word holds on ; the light revives.
Israel goes into Egypt; and it seems as if
the promise given to Abraham is to be over-
whelmed in Egyptian darkness and sin. But
no ; it lasts on ; the light appears to die out,
but it is seen again. Again in the Babylon-
ish Captivity all seems to be swallowed up ;
but no, it lasts on, it is not overwhelmed;
when the world was at its darkest and drear-
iest, things right themselves; and then, at
last, the light blazes forth to disperse the
darkness, though Israel is given up to the
hope of an earthly Messiah, and only just a
few, like Simeon and Anna, Mary and
Joseph, and the disciples of the Baptist, are
waiting for redemption in Israel, the promise
is fulfilled, the Seed of the woman comes at

* Gen. vi. 1 2.

HER PREDESTINATION. 15

the expense of His toil aiid Passion to work
out man's redemption.

And so is it in our individual experience.
That illuminating light of conscience, quick-
ened by regenerating grace, seems in some
of us, at times, to be all but blotted out. But
no ; that inspiration which pursued us so lov-
ingly, in spite of all our disregard of its
warnings, shining out now and again, through
the sins of our life, is not extinguished ; it is
still there, it would not let us have peace ; it
is capable of being fanned into a burning
flame which will disperse all the darkness
around. Think, then, as you prepare for a
review of past experiences, of this wonderful,
long-suffering patience of God, bearing with
us individually, as with the human race
collectively; learn from it patience in deal-
ing with others, hopefulness with regard to
those who are committed to your charge;
and when all seems to be going wrong,
when all seems to be dead, hold on to them
still, as God has held on to you. The little
spark — O cherish it; there is something good
in that child; hold on to it; that spark is not

1 6 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

overwhelmed yet; nay, with careful cherish-
ing it shall yet burst out into a flame, and,
in God's good time, disperse the surround-
ing gloom.

Learn, then, the lesson of patience and
hopefulness, from Mary's predestination and
ours, from God's purpose, and, in the end,
its sure accomplishment. "Wait for the
vision;" and "though it tarry," still, "wait
for it;" for, in the end, "it will surely
come."*

One more lesson in connection with, and
in illustration of, the same truth. Have
you ever noticed in this light the genealogy
at the very beginning of St. Matthew's Gos-
pel ? Sometimes one has wondered at the
long list of names, dry and uninteresting,
standing at the forefront of the New Testa-
ment— what business has it there ? Ah !
just look. It does, indeed, stand in the fore-
front of the Gospel, full of " good news" for
those who have eyes to see! Run through
these names; choose out the female names;
there are four before you come to the name

* Habak. ii. 3.

HER PREDESTINATION. 17

of Blessed Mary, and ea£h one has a horrid
blot. There is the name of incestuous
Tamar; of Rahab, the harlot; of Ruth, one
of an accursed nation; and of Bathsheba,
the adulteress, who had been the wife of
Uriah. Through that stained genealogy,
the Holy Seed comes! God shows us that
He can bring out of a stained line a perfect
work; that He can " bring a clean thing out
of an unclean; "* the light is not swallowed
up in darkness; the promised Seed of the
Woman has come — the Incarnate Word of
God.

We look back upon our past life, like that
stained record, that blotted genealogy, on
sins of one kind and another — of wasted op-
portunities, of carelessness and of indiffer-
ence, and we are tempted to despair; we
think, "What is the use of my trying, of
my cherishing a high standard ? I had bet-
ter give up ! " No ; at the end of that
stained record, that blotted genealogy,
stands the name of the Virgin Mother of
the Incarnate Son, of Him who came to

* Job xiv. 4.

i8 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

save His people from our sins, to change the
course of our life, to purge away our earthly
stain, to make us pure instead of earthly,
disciplined instead of self-indulgent, gentle
and meek instead of wilful and wayward.
Think of the promise of God standing sure ;
think of the perfect holiness, at last re-
vealed, the work of the Spirit to sanctify
all our sin-stained descent — a gift that
has washed away that which soiled our
life.

Yes; there are sure mercies awaiting us,
if only we will return. Think of the words
of the Prophet Jeremiah: "Thus saith the
Lord .... Ye shall seek Me and find
Me, when ye shall search for Me with all
your heart."*

Let me give the Scripture references for
the passages I have quoted:

i. Our Lord's words concerning His Blessed Mother, as
the type and pattern of the faithful. — St. Matt. xii. 49, 50 ;
St. Luke xi. 27, 28.

ii. And in connection with those words of Our Lord, the
words of St. Paul about the reproduction of the Birth of
Christ in our own experience. — Gal. iv. 9; Ephes. iii. 17.

*Jer. xxix. 10-14.

HER PREDESTINATION. 19

iii. The verse about the Light Shining in darkness, and
the darkness overwhelming it not.— .$"/. John i. 5.

iv. The stained genealogy. — St. Matt. i.

v. God's promise of His sure mercies to those who desire
to seek and to return, and to those who seek Him with all
their heart. — Jer. xxix. 10-14.

And now, with the thought of God's pur-
pose concerning Blessed Mary, and of His
purpose for ourselves; of His purpose known
to Him from the beginning; of His knowl-
edge of us, both in His predestinating love,
as He would make us, and as we really are,
let us kneel and repeat Psalm cxxxix.

SECOND MEDITATION.

THE TRAINING OF BLESSED MARY FOR HER
VOCATION.

LET us meditate upon the training of
Blessed Mary. Contemplate her as a child,
studying the Old Testament Scriptures.

Almighty God, Who hast a work for each
of us to do, a place for each of us to fill;
have mercy upon us, we beseech Thee, as we
draw near to Thee, lamenting all our unfaith-
fulness and our want of correspondence with
Thy holy will. Help us to yield ourselves
in loving trustfulness to Thy holy leading;
grant us to know what Thou wouldst have
us do ; and give us grace and power faith-
fully to fulfil the same, that so we may
grow in Thy knowledge and love; through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Our Father.

We take for our leading thought through-

TRAINING FOR HER VOCATION. 21

out our meditations the example of Blessed
Mary as the type and pattern of all the faith-
ful in whom Christ is to be formed by the
Spirit's power.

In our Introductory Meditation we thought
of Blessed Mary's predestination, and of
ours; of God's eternal purpose, and how it
was accomplished; and of His will for the
manifestation of His Son in us. Now we
will go on to consider her training for her
vocation, and ours.

In thinking of her childhood and early
years, there is room, of course, for a wide
range of imagination ; legend has been busy
concerning her youth. We will leave all
that on one side. All through the Retreat
we will try and keep close to the Gospel
record. Three points, however, are dis-
tinctly suggested by the thoughtful con-
sideration of St. Luke's narrative of the
Annunciation and Visitation — three points
which throw light on Mary's previous history :

i st. Her preparation. " The Lord is
withthee."*

*St. Lukei. 28.

22 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

2d. Her previous dedication of herself
to God's undivided service, implied in her
response to the Angelic Salutation.

3d. Her knowledge of God's Word, shown
in the Magnificat.

I. First, we will consider Mary's uncon-
scious preparation for her vocation, which yet
God knew all along.

From the first He had had His purpose;
' ' the seed of the woman should bruise the
serpent's head." *

He foresaw her, He foreordained her, He
was watching over her, He was preparing
her; but, all the while, she grew up in per-
fect unconsciousness of the great vocation
which was in store for her. If it could be
said of St. Paul that he was * ' a chosen ves-
sel;"! °f Jeremiah, " Before I formed thee
in the belly I knew thee; and before thou
earnest forth out of the womb I sanctified
thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the
nations; " J and of John the Baptist, that he
was sanctified from his mother's womb;§ so
*Gen. iii. 15. f Acts ix. 15.

JJer. i. 5. g St. Luke i. 15.

TRAINING FOR HER VOCATION. 23

surely we may apply to Blessed Mary those
words, "from the bowels of my mother hath
He made mention of my name."* Accord-
ingly, not only her Nativity, but her Concep-
tion also is commemorated by the Church,
although the manner of her sanctification is
not defined. God did not choose her be-
cause she was naturally fitted, but He fitted
her because He chose her. He always fits
and prepares those whom He chooses, if only
they will be true and faithful to His purpose
as He makes His will known to them, step
by step. Deus coronat dona sua in nobis.
It is God's own gift that He crowns in us,
not only in heaven, but on earth, as each
grace is given in reward for some previous
grace corresponded with ; and that previous
grace is the gift of God. So Mary was
"filled with grace ;" not "full of grace" as
a source, but filled with grace, as a choice
receptacle. God Himself had been prepar-
ing her; she herself, all the while, perfectly
unconscious ; growing up in Nazareth, living
her simple child's life "as a lily among

*Is. xlix. i.

24 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

thorns,"* growing up sweet and beautiful in
that rough place of evil repute, coneerning
which it was said, ' ' Can any good thing
come out of Nazareth ? " f — that little pro-
vincial town, notorious for the lawlessness
and depravity of its inhabitants; " un-
known " to earth, "yet well known" to
heaven; God watching over her, preparing
her; and Mary all the while unconscious.

So is it with each one of us. God has
His purpose for each one. We do not come
into the world at haphazard to find some
place to fill, some work to do; God has His
plan for each one; "known unto God are
all His works from the beginning. "J He
has arranged our circumstances, our environ-
ment, our inheritance, our combination of
talents, the presence of this gift, or the
absence of that — all have been taken into
account by God, ordered and overruled by
that Wisdom which ' * reacheth from one
end to another, mightily and sweetly order-
ing all things. "§

* Cant. ii. 2. f St. John i. 46.

J Acts xv. 1 8. \ Wisdom viii. I.

TRAINING FOR HER VOCATION. 25

Going back to our earliest years, think
when we were Baptized, incorporated into
the Body of Christ, how He gave us our
name and place in His regenerate family.
Our Baptismal name is sacramental; not
only because it tells of our regenerate posi-
tion, but it is itself a sort of sacrament, an
outward sign of a great spiritual reality; it
tells of the special purpose God has for each
one of us, of the likeness to His Well-be-
loved Son that He would have produced in
us, as Christ is born in each of us by the
grace of the Holy Spirit. And, by degrees,
as life advances and develops, that name,
which expressed God's purpose for each, is
spelt out, syllable by syllable, almost letter
by letter, till we come to know fully what
that name stands for. At our Confirmation
or our First Communion; at some great
upheaval of our life, some disappointment,
sorrow or trial; or when spiritual things
first shine out as very real, e.g. at our first
Retreat or our first Confession, God shows
us something of what He would make of our
life — of what we should do with the powers

26 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

He has given us; we learned a fresh syllable,
as it were, of our Baptismal name. We
learn that there is something we can do —
some place we are to fill — yes, and some-
thing, perhaps, that is shut out from us;
that we are not intended for this or that.
1 i I am learning God's purpose and mind for
me." And so, in deeper spiritual things —
by the advice of friends, the warnings and
counsels of spiritual guides, by the voice of
conscience — in all these ways God is making
more plain what He would have me seek after,
what special features of His Son's Life He
would have me reproduce. It is only gradu-
ally revealed; in mercy He withholds all
that He sees we could not yet bear. It
would startle us and stun us were we to
know all that is before us; the height of our
vocation would overwhelm us; were we to
see the difficult steps by which that height is
to be attained, it would cause us to de-
spair !

Did we but see

When life first open'd, how our journey lay
Between its earliest and its closing day;

TRAINING FOR HER VOCATION. 27

Or view ourselves, as we one time shall be,
Who strive for the high prize ; such sight would break
The youthful spirit, though bold for Jesu's sake.

But thou, dear Lord !

Whilst I traced out bright scenes which were to come,
Isaac's pure blessings, and a verdant home,

Didst spare me, and withhold Thy fearful word,
Wiling me year by year, till I am found
A pilgrim pale, with Paul's sad girdle bound.*

So it was with Blessed Mary. Had she
known the unique honor for which she was
intended, the prerogative that should be hers,
that she should be the Mother according to
the Flesh of the Eternal and Only Begotten
Son, she must have shrunk back dismayed.
But she was gradually led on: — " What I do,
thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know
hereafter."! Ah! how many meanings
those words of our Lord have ! The way by
which God leads us seems often to be so
dark, so puzzling, so unmeaning! Those
trials, those perplexities — why are they ?
"Thou shalt know hereafter" what this or
that was meant for — this check, that disap-
pointment— "what I do" — the urging on to

* J. H. Newman, in Lyra Apostolica. f St. John xiii. 7.

28 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

this or that way of perfection which would
have raised you from earthly hopes to some-
thing higher; or the warning voice, which
if you had followed you might have avoided
this or that habit which did not destroy, per-
haps, but which marred and lowered your
spiritual life, blurred the conscience, and
kept you back from perfect truthfulness,
perfect purity! Alas! " thou knowest not
now, but thou shalt know hereafter" — not
only in another world, but here, as we wake
up and see how, if only we had been faithful
to God's voice, we might have been saved
this or that stain, this or that wound, which
can only now be healed by long and severe
discipline of penitence. Ah! if I had only
followed this or that inspiration of con-
science— been true to those means of grace —
made the most of those educational advan-
tages— how much more capable I might
have been now; how much more I might
have effected, not only for myself, but for
others! I see now what I might have be-
come but for my own disobedience or negli-
gence or disregard of warnings.

t

TRAINING FOR HER VOCATION. 29

"What I do, thou knowest not now."
Yes; and there is a brighter side to this.
As we look back and see this or that thing —
this little disappointment — that little trial —
how God wove it into our life, how it fitted
in with God's great purpose, and by it we
were led on to something better and higher.
Think of Blessed Mary being led on, step by
step, and all unconsciously. "The Lord is
with thee," the Angel said, and therefore He
can come to thee in closer and more won-
drous fashion.

What is needed ? Just one thing on our
part — fidelity, loving correspondence. He
knows what He is working for, and it shall
surely be accomplished, if only we do not
thwart His purpose. "Whosoever hath, to
him shall be given."* Step by step we are
led on, by a real process of evolution, one
grace giving birth to another, each step
making the next more easy and more nat-
ural; each step we miss making the next
more difficult. Ah ! let us look back and see
God's dealings with us, praise Him for His

*St. Matt. xiii. 12.

30 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

loving care and providence, bewail our want
of correspondence with. His leadings, and
brace ourselves with loving earnestness for
whatever we have now to do, however hard
and difficult, to make up for our past failures.

II. Think of Mary's previoiis dedication of
herself to the service of God. It seems clear
from her response to the Angel, "How
shall this be, seeing I know not a man ? " *
that she had as a girl dedicated her maiden-
hood entirely to God's service; otherwise
her response has no meaning. If she had
been just about to enter upon the marriage
state under its ordinary conditions, the
promise of a child would have been natural.
She might have wondered how it could
come about that she should have the honour
of being the mother of the Messiah ; but she
asks, "How shall this be," that I become a
mother, " seeing I know not a man ? "

It is not an inquiry of scepticism or doubt,
like that of Zacharias, but of true and
modest testing of the Angelic message.
* St. Luke i. 34.

TRAINING FOR HER VOCATION. 31

The promise fires all her ambition, but how
can it be harmonized with her previous vow
— the entire dedication of herself ? In
prayer and meditation she had learned of a
closer spiritual fellowship with God, and
for this she had risen above the great ambi-
tion of Jewish women, to be, at least, in the
line of the Messiah's maternal ancestry. It
was this hope which made a single life or
barrenness to be considered a curse or a
disgrace among Jewish women. Mary had
risen above that; she had foregone that
great hope ; she looked for ' ' a place and a
name better than of sons and of daughters;" *
she had consecrated herself wholly to God
that she might wait upon Him without dis-
traction. And because she had foregone
that great hope, because she had responded
to a higher call, and sought a deeper spirit-
ual grace, God gives her the other blessing
also ; she shall be the Virgin Mother of the
Messiah, of God's Incarnate Son !

And so in our own life we must be sepa-
rated from lower things; not only from
*Is. Ivi. 5.

32 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

things that are wrong and bad, but from
things that are in themselves innocent and
good, but which might prevent our rising up
to things greater and higher. Blessed Mary
is separated from the world before she is con-
secrated to God; and so must it be with us.
This applies not only to the dedicated life of
" Religious. " In many things, in one way
or another, we may, any of us, have to give
up some great hope, some possibility, some
sphere of influence that opens out before us;
we might have it, we might keep it, but,
somehow, we feel it would not be quite con-
sistent with our dedication to God. " I am
kept back from this or that opportunity —
this or that cherished plan of advancement
in the world — this or that development of
my faculties and talents by a higher duty to
which God has called me. I have to work
for those near and dear to me. I might get
on in this or that sphere of usefulness, but I
am held back by conscience ; I must give up
something good for something that is really
better."

God, be sure, is never outdone in generos-

TRAINING FOR HER VOCATION. 33

ity. " There is no man that hath left house,
or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother,
or wife, or children, or lands, for My sake,
and the Gospel's, but he shall receive an
hundredfold now in this time, houses, and
brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and chil-
dren, and lands, with persecutions; and in
the world to come eternal life." *

Think of the sacrifices to which God has
called you in the past; see how they have
been blessed ; how God has led you on by this
or that dedication of yourself or of your tal-
ents, to something higher and better.

Bishop Jeremy Taylor, in his " Golden
Grove," advises us to make note of four
great extraordinaries in our lives, and in our
seasons of special spiritual exercises to bring
them out before us.

i. The great and shameful sins into which
we may have fallen, in order to excite a
deeper repentance for them.

ii. The greater and more excellent acts of
virtue that, by God's grace, we have been
enabled to perform, in order that we may

* St. Mark x. 29, 30.

34 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

learn what we can do now, by God's grace,
from the consideration of what we have done
in the past.

iii. The more singular graces and blessings
He has vouchsafed to us, to kindle our lov-
ing gratitude.

iv. The special vows and promises we have
made to God ; that we may consider how far
we have been true and faithful, in the
past, and set ourselves to greater faithfulness
in the time to come.

Dwell on that second point. Consider
what God has enabled you to do in the past.
Don't in coming into Retreat dwell too
much on the shame and humiliation our sins
have brought upon ' us; there must, of
course, be the humbling of ourselves as we
come face to face with the past; but hope —
look up ; your past may be a pledge of what
God will do for you in the future. Think of
the grace He has given you, the holy inspira-
tions He has breathed into you, and how
" He who has begun a good work in you will
perform it," if only you are true and faithful.*
* Phil. i. 6.

TRAINING FOR HER VOCATION. 35

III. Consider what must have been Mary's
study of God's Word in her early years,
as shown by the Magnificat. At the Visita-
tion, when St. Elizabeth saluted her with
such reverence, " Blessed art thou among
women, and blessed is the fruit of thy
womb. And whence is this to me, that
the mother of my Lord should come to
me ? " * Mary at once breaks out into her
song of thanksgiving — the evening Canticle
of the Church throughout all ages — the
Magnificat.

And the Magnificat is all based upon Han-
nah's song of thanksgiving, as recorded in
i Sam. ii. Mary does not try to be original,
her mind is steeped in Holy Scripture ; the
spiritually-minded Hannah inspires Mary,
and the more spiritually-minded Mary knows
how to make the words her own, to adapt
them and apply them with fuller meaning
and in thanksgiving for a greater Gift than
that which called forth Hannah's song of
praise. All that comes from Mary's lips
wells up from her heart, but all is based on
* St. Luke 1.42, 43.

36 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

the Old Testament psalm. The Spirit uses
His former utterances ; the Magnificat is the
New Testament edition of the Old Testa-
ment canticle.

Consider how our mind and heart ought to
be familiarized with God's former utterances ;
how in joining in the Divine Liturgy, the
Psalter, and in all the utterances of the
Church, we ought to be learning, not merely
phrases of devotion for our own devotions
and private use, but how they should be to
us a real means of approach to God, and
we should adapt them to our own personal
use. "He that hath an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith to the Churches." * Let
the Spirit bring our minds into harmony
with the minds and hearts of the saints of all
ages. In this text we have the reconciliation
of two truths that nowadays are so often
thought to be contrary — the Spirit speaking
to the Church generally, and to ourselves
individually. What the Spirit saith unto us
will be in harmony with what He has said to
others; we can test what we think He says

* Rev. ii. 29.

TRAINING FOR HER VOCATION. 37

to us by its harmony with that which He has
said to others.

And this applies to the use of manuals and
books of devotion; let us seek to be abso-
lutely real and natural in our use of them.
It matters not how good they are, whether
Bishop Andrewes', or Bishop Cosin's, Bishop
Ken's, or Bishop Taylor's — their words are
not our own, and in many instances perhaps
are too high for us, we have not yet risen to
them. Use them if you please, but do not be
content with just using them; adapt them,
assimilate them, appropriate them. A man-
ual of devotion that is used just as it is
printed is not worth much ; it ought to have
ever so many lines scratched out, and many
others written in; it must be adapted and
assimilated by different persons according to
their several needs. Ah ! make your prayers
real ! * * I am approaching the Living God.
He has His intention, His mind, His voca-
tion for me. I am to approach Him in my
devotions with my own needs, and sins, and
joys, and hopes."

So take these three points for meditation,

38 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

drawn from the story of the Annunciation
and the Visitation :

i. God's preparation of Blessed Mary for
her vocation; her previous training, her grad-
ual preparation for it ; herself, meanwhile, all
unconscious ; God working out everything to
its great end.

ii. Her previous dedication of herself.

iii. Her study and application of God's
word; giving us an example of reality in
devotion, in drawing near to God.

Let us repeat Psalm xxv.

THIRD MEDITATION.

THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN
MARY.

LET us meditate on the Annunciation.

Behold the Angel coming with his lofty
salutation to Mary in the lowly home of Naz-
areth:— " Hail, thou that art highly favoured,
the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou
among women." And Mary, as she surren-
ders herself to the Divine vocation, says,
' ' Behold the handmaid of the Lord ; be it
unto me according to thy word." *

O Almighty God, Who hast fashioned us
to carry out Thy purpose, that Thy Son
might be manifested in each one of us;
grant us each one, now and ever, to listen to
Thy voice and so to yield ourselves to the
operation of Thy Blessed Spirit that we may
indeed be conformed to the Image of Thy
Blessed Son, that Thou mayest be glorified
* St. Luke i. 28-38.

39

40 THE" VIRGIN MOTHER.

in us, and that we may find acceptance with
Thee at the last, through the same Thy Son
Jesus Christ our Lord, Who liveth and reign-
eth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One
God, world without end. Amen.

We have meditated on the training and
preparation of Blessed Mary for her great
vocation. We come now to consider the
story of the great crisis of her life, when (i)
the Angel announced God's will and purpose
for her, and (2) Mary responded, "Behold
the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me
according to thy word." And then (3) the
consequence followed, the Divine purpose is
accomplished — '" the Word was made flesh,"
of her substance, "and dwelt among us." *

Let us consider in the story the three
great lessons of: i. Her prudence; ii. Her
consent ; iii. Her self -oblation.

I. Consider the Prudence of Blessed Mary.

Think of her first recorded word. Truly,
she realized the description in the Book of
Proverbs of the virtuous woman who

* St. John i. 14,

THE ANNUNCIATION. 41

"openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in
her tongue is the law of kindness " *
"She openeth her mouth with wisdom."
The Angel comes with his lofty saluta-
tion, "Hail, thou that art highly favoured,
the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou
among women ; " and Mary, in her modes-
ty and lowliness, is troubled at his salu-
tation, ' ' and cast in her mind what manner
of salutation this should be." She is ut-
terly unconscious of the high dignity, the
wondrous destiny that awaits her. The
Angel goes on with the promise of a Son;
" Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found
favour with God. And behold, thou shalt
conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a
Son, and shalt call his name Jesus." And
then she is perplexed and she asks, "How
shall this be, seeing I know not a man ? "
The question is not one of scepticism or of
doubt; but of modest inquiry, of a desire to
test before she accepts the Angelic mes-
sage ; and so it is treated in an entirely differ-
ent way from the question of Zacharias,

* Prov, xxxi. 26.

42 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

"What shall be the sign?" In condescen-
sion to his weakness God gives him a sign ;
but the sign manifests God's displeasure at
his unbelief; he is struck dumb; he goes out
of the temple unable to speak, or even to
bless the people in God's Name; he can
only make a sign. When at the child's cir-
cumcision he acts in faith and obedience,
and gives the name which the Angel had
foretold, he recovers his speech.

There is nothing of this in Blessed Mary;
she only wonders how this great and blessed
promise can be reconciled with her existing
obligations. Her espousal to Joseph is only
for the shelter and protection of her dedi-
cated maidenhood, and she cannot under-
stand the wondrous promise until the Angel
explains that it shall be accomplished with
no violation of her holy estate: — "the Holy
Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power
of the Highest shall overshadow thee,"*
etc. Then, as soon as the way is made
clear, and the difficulty removed ; or, rather,
when the promise is seen not to conflict with

*St. Luke 1.35.

THE ANNUNCIATION. 43

her obligations, immediately follows her
entire self -surrender ; without hesitation she
replies, " Behold the handmaid of the Lord;
be it unto me according to thy word." *

Now we are to imitate Blessed Mary in
her prudence. When suggestions come to us,
whether of doctrine or of practice, we are to
test them. When some new form of service,
some new rule of devotion or of self-dis-
cipline, or some new belief is presented to
us, we are not to swallow it down with one
tremendous gulp, — nothing of the kind ; we
are to ask the question, How is this to be ?
How is this new belief to be reconciled with
what God has already taught me? Can this
idea be reconciled with the obligations that
are already laid upon me ? We are to be on
our guard lest we be seduced (as was Mother
Eve) by Satan transforming himself into an
angel of light and coming to us with mes-
sages flattering to our self-love. Do not
swallow down as true everything you hear
in a sermon ; test it. The Bereans were com-
manded when they searched the Scriptures
*St. Luke 1.38.

44 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

to see " whether these things were so."*
And St. John says we are to " try the spirits
whether they are of God."f So with this
message — Is it from heaven — an angel of
God — or is it a seducing spirit ? Is this fair
promise to lead me aside from the strict path
of duty or obedience ? Our reason must
always justify our obedience. This is not
rationalistic; reason is never contrary to
faith. What is faith, after all ? It is but
reason illumined by the Spirit of God.
Faith reveals to us that which reason alone
could never guess; or faith makes certain
what reason made very probable. Faith and
reason can never contradict one another;
reason and conscience are God's voice in the
human soul, and God can never contradict
Himself. The Word, who is Incarnate in the
fulness of grace and truth, is ''the Light
which lighteth every man that cometh into
the world. " J Faith is like a telescope, which
enables us to see distant objects which the
naked eye could never discern, or which it
could only see dimly and in outline. So

* Acts xvii. ii. f I St, John iv. i. J St. John i. 9.

THE ANNUNCIATION. 45

faith enables to see clearly that which reason
only has a glimmer of. Faith never contra-
dicts reason, nor creates the object which it
reveals any more than the telescope creates
the object made visible in the distance.

Just so is it with regard to matters of prac-
tice. We may be so easily deceived. This
or that spiritual project comes before us —
some suggestion of greater strictness, per-
haps; and yet it may be only to foster pride.
We overreach ourselves, undertaking some-
thing that we can never accomplish; or we
undertake some distant duty, neglecting that
which God has placed close to us in our fam-
ily or with our friends. " From the deceits
of the world and the flesh and the devil,
good Lord, deliver us ! " From self-love, and
from all that leads us aside from the plain
path of duty and obedience, good Lord,
deliver us !

Our Blessed Lord's Temptation shows us
the need of this testing, for to such tempta-
tions He was exposed; for instance, to antici-
pate the close of His Fast :* to claim protec-

* St. Matt. iv. 3, 6, 9.

46 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

tion in a way not promised; to snatch at
power for a good use, but not in God's
way.

How often are we deceived like Mother
Eve, instead of putting the question, like
Blessed Mary; so that, when that is ans-
wered, we can go on to the second step.
"Now, I know this comes from God, so I
must go on and do the will of God." What
we take up lightly we let go lightly; but if
we pause and test the matter, then we shall
have ground and cause for obedience.

But how may we test these things and be
delivered from self-deception ?

We have two safeguards, i. By cherish-
ing a spirit of constant faithfulness. * ' My
sheep," says our Lord, "hear My voice."*
They are My sheep already. When I come
to the sheepfold and call, they recognize My
voice. And why ? Because they have so
often heard it before. Yes; as we listen
and obey, we learn to distinguish the voice of
God from all other voices ; from that of our
own self-love, and from all seducing spirits.

* St. John x. 27.

THE ANNUNCIATION. 47

It is as when we hear the voice of some
dearly-loved friend in the midst of a crowd,
it sounds above all other voices, it rings out
distinct and clear — "I know that voice; I
have heard it so often before; I could not
mistake it." Just so it is with the faithful
soul ; it has gained, by listening and obeying,
the power of discerning God's voice from all
other voices ; it has learned to distinguish it
from the seductive voices of the world. So
constant faithfulness gives us the power
of recognition and discrimination.

2. Again, what God says will always be in
harmony with what He has already said ; for
God cannot contradict Himself. The new
vocation, the new teaching, which comes
from Him, will be the legitimate development
(not the contradiction) of previous teach-
ing; it will be consistent with all that has
gone before. He will not call in different
ways. True, He may keep us waiting, and
by so doing He may be preparing us for His
call to enter upon something in the future
that we cannot yet take in hand, and we
have to wait until the outward tokens of His

48 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

Providence correspond with the inward call
of Grace; then, when the two coincide, we
have a perfect moral assurance. For in-
stance : A young woman thinks she has been
drawn by God to devote herself to the Relig-
ious Life; yet at present she has other
duties to fulfil. In her home, perhaps, there
are younger children to teach and care for ;
or parents who need her aid and sympathy ;
or perhaps the express will of others hold
her back ; she has checks. Then she has no
right to enter upon this new experience.
Let her by all means cherish the thought
and keep herself free from other ties; she
may be training herself in exercises of
prayer and self-discipline for a more entire
dedication of herself; but not, remember, by
acting as a sort of demi-semi Sister of Mercy
with rules and practices unsuited to her ac-
tual position, instead of being a loving sister
or a good daughter in the world. Do your
duty perfectly, soundly, in whatever state
God has placed }rou, and then you will be
ready to be called on to whatever else He
has in store for you.

THE ANNUNCIATION. 49

And so with the call to the Priesthood.
There is an earnest desire in a young man to
devote himself to the ministry; but he has
not the intellectual gifts, or the training
necessary for it; and so he is held back.
But the thought has not come to him for
nothing, and it is not to be lightly put aside ;
no, it is intended to lead him on to some
higher self-dedication, to a more recollected,
devoted life, to whatever God may have in
store for him. We may be mistaken as to
the outward form in which any call is to be
realized, but its inner spiritual significance
remains.

So think of those two safeguards with
which we are to be armed against deluding
self-love, and enabled to discern God's will
for us, as we consider the example of
Mary's prudence, as she asks, "How shall
this be ? " i. e. how is it to be reconciled
with existing obligations ?

II. Let us go on to consider her answer in
her second word, and learn a lesson from her
Consent.

50 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

Having been assured, she says " Behold
the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me
according to thy word." * It was in Mary's
power" to have refused. The Incarnation
might have been delayed, and another instru-
ment would have to be found, furnished and
prepared for God's work. The Creator will
not act in this great mystery without the
creature's full consent. The Omnipotent
stands on ceremony with his own finite
creature; He waits for Mary's consent.

Yes; God has raised us to too great a
dignity to use us as mere blind instruments
for His purpose, whether for the carrying out
of some great external work, or for the
accomplishment of His work within the
soul. He has bestowed on us the awful but
blessed prerogative of Free Will. Here is
the explanation of that which so often per-
plexes us about temptation. " Why does
God allow evil ? If he wants me to be good,
why does He allow it to be possible to be
bad?" The answer is plain: We cannot
be really good without the possibility of
* St. Luke i. 38.

THE ANNUNCFATION. 51

being bad. We might serve God with all
the mechanical obedience of the heavenly
bodies ; but the simple obedience of a little
child is immeasurably above that, because it
is not a mechanical but a moral obedience.
So God would have us become good by
choosing goodness, not as slaves, but as
friends, who choose justice, goodness, obedi-
ence, and so become just, good, and obedi-
ent. We become that which we choose. So
did the blessed Angels become good; they
passed through their probation, they chose
God, and they stood firm in grace ; the others
refused — refused God as the Law of their
being, and they are forever parted from Him.
And so man has to choose, throughout the
probation of his earthly life. God never
forces our will. He comes to us, as He sent
the Angel Gabriel to Blessed Mary, waiting
for our consent ; as He came to Matthew at
the receipt of custom ; he was called to fol-
low Jesus, he might have remained a tax-
gatherer, but by an act of willing obedience
" he left all, rose up and followed Him." * So

* St. Luke v. 28.

52 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

was the rich young man called; the choice
was given him, he was unwilling, and so he
was allowed to go away sorrowful.* So was
Judas called. The Master spent on him all
His loving care; he falls away because he
was not "obedient unto the heavenly vision"
granted him.f God never, never forces our
will. Herein is holiness — in doing the will
of God, in being conformed thereto; herein
is sin — in withholding self from the will of
God. It matters not what the subject-mat-
ter may be ; it may be in some tremendous
struggle, or in some trifling concern that the
choice comes; if conscience tells us this or
that is wrong, and we do not heed, it is the
breaking away from the will of God. The
vocation comes, God speaks plainly, lovingly,
entreatingly, but He won't constrain us; He
will have the homage of our loving choice.
Think of this as true, not only in the great
crises of life, in times of some moral up-
heaval, some great conversion, but it is like-
wise true in the continual actions of daily
life. It is true, also, as regards our recep-

* St. Luke xviii. 23. f Acts xxvi. 19.

THE ANNUNCIATION: 53

tion of sacramental grace. The Angel
comes, as he came to Blessed Mary, that we,
like Blessed Mary, may yield ourselves in
order that God's work of grace may be ac-
complished in us; but we must work along
with God. We thought of the necessity of
real, personal communion with God in
Prayer; so must it be in the reception of
the Sacraments; they do not act as charms;
they have their place, they are means to
ends, but they are not ends in themselves.
Never confound means with ends. The
Sacraments are the covenanted means of
grace, but we must " open our mouth wide "
if we would be filled; we must come with
right dispositions, we must ' ' hunger and
thirst after righteousness, " * if we are to be
filled. Thus, for instance, in making con-
fession; it is not the mere going, or the
recounting our sins that avails; we must
come with real sorrow and desire for par-
don ; we must for our part put away the sin
by true repentance that Almighty God may
put it away on His part by an act of forgive-
*St. Matt. v. 6.

54 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

ness and cleansing. Absolution will never
stand in place of contrition. There is no
more deadly snare than confession without
repentance. There is an old Latin motto
which says : Tanta gratia quanta dispositio —
the grace we receive will be in proportion to
the dispositions with which we come. " Open
thy mouth wide, and I will fill it."* We
must yield ourselves to the operations of the
Holy Spirit; laying the skin of our soul bare,
so to speak, that the Finger of God may
touch and heal and cleanse it.

So think of the lesson of Mary's Consent
— her yielding of herself to the Divine
vocation.

III. Think of the Self -Oblation of Blessed
Mary, and what that consent involved.

She must have foreseen something of what
the acceptance of the Angel's message in-
volved. In her study of the prophetic Scrip-
tures she must have gained some real knowl-
edge of what the Messiah was to be, and of
the nature of His work. She had not a

* Ps. Ixxxi. 10.

THE ANNUNCIATION. 55

mere earthly conception of His career, such
as the Scribes and Pharisees had. She must
have known that the Messiah was to be "a
Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief."*
She must have known that the shadow of
the Cross would fall on those near to Him,
that the Mother of the Man of Sorrows must
be the Mater Dolor osa; that, in some way or
another, the sword would pierce her own
soul.f She must have seen, too, in rapid
forethought, what the acceptance of the
Angel's message involved for her in the near
future — the shame — the hard thoughts — the
suspicion of her fall — ah! how exquisitely
painful to her pure soul! But it is God's
call, and at whatever cost it must be
obeyed. Yes; think what was involved in
those words of self -surrender. " Be it unto
me according to thy word." Mary ac-
cepted the sacrifice of that which is dearer to
a young maiden than her very life, and here-
by she becomes pre-eminently the heroine of
Isreal, the ideal daughter of Zion, the per-
fect type of human receptivity in regard to

*Is. liii. 3. f St. Luke ii. 35.

56 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

the Divine work. She shows herself to be
indeed a true daughter of Abraham, the
father of the faithful, ready to go forth
wherever God directs, even to unknown
lands — to darkness, perplexity and shame ! *
So we, too, have to yield ourselves to the
Divine vocation ; to a greater strictness of life,
to some work of charity, some fuller mani-
festation of the truth of God, at the expense
of obloquy, at the cost of separation from
those near and dear to us — and God knows
what it costs us to cut ourselves off from
them! Yet it must be done; we must act,
like Blessed Mary, on the principle of faith,
leaving consequences to Him. Mary could
not see how she was to be carried through or
provided for; but she knew that He was
faithful who had called her, and she placed
herself in His hands. Is there any more
comfortable word in Holy Scripture than
this:— "Faithful is He that calleth you,
who also will do it." f Because He is faith-
ful, strength will be given sufficient to
carry out that which is commanded.

* Godet on St. Luke's, f I Thess. v. 24.

THE ANNUNCIATION. 57

There must be neither eager, vain, pre-
sumptuous snatching at high things; nor a
cowardly holding back when God calls.

We will test the suggestion that comes to
us. When once we are assured that it is
from God, there is only one response we
can make,

' * Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it
unto me according to thy word!" — "Lord,
what wilt thou have me to do ? " *

With such thoughts let us repeat Psalm
xvi.

*Actsix. 6.

FOURTH MEDITATION.

THE VISITATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN
MARY.

LET us meditate upon the Visitation of the
Blessed Virgin Mary. Contemplate Mary
singing the Magnificat in the house of Zach-
arias and Elizabeth.

O Almighty God, Who hast called us near
to Thyself in the covenant of grace, and hast
bestowed upon us countless gifts of grace,
grant us, we pray Thee, so to meditate on
all Thy goodness that we may return to
Thee the homage of our loving gratitude;
and, praising Thee for Thy mercy in the
past, may learn to trust Thee for the time
to come.

Our Father.

All the subjects on which we have already
meditated in connection with the early life
of the Blessed Virgin Mary — her predestina-

THE VISITATION. 59

tion, her training, and the Annunciation —
all these belong to the Joyful Mysteries of
the Incarnation, as they are called, as dis-
tinguished from the Sorrowful Mysteries, in
which she shared the Passion of her Son; as,
in the Glorious Mysteries, she shared His
Triumph.

And the mystery of the Visitation, on
which we are now to meditate, is pre-emi-
nently a Mystery of Joy. Mary hastens to
communicate her wondrous joy to her cousin
Elizabeth, and to congratulate her relative on
the joy that has come to her after such long
waiting. And Elizabeth welcomes St. Mary
with reverent joy. " Blessed art thou
among women, and blessed is the fruit of
thy womb. And whence is this to me that
the mother of my Lord should come to
me ? " * Her unborn child recognizes the
unborn Saviour, and at Mary's salutation
the babe leaped in his mother's womb for
joy; while Mary bursts out into her canticle
of joy — "My soul doth magnify the Lord
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my
* St. Luke i. 48.

60 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

Saviour." The whole visit is a time of joy,
beginning and ending with a canticle; be-
ginning with Mary's Magnificat, and ending
with Zacharias' Benedictus, in which he
poured out the result of all those medita-
tions which had filled his mind during that
nine months solitude and silence, in which
he had been, as it were, keeping his Retreat,
pondering the ancient prophecies which the
Angel told him were about to be fulfilled;
and in the fulfilment of which his promised
son was to play so prominent a part as the
herald of the Messiah. Dwell upon the holy
joy of those three months which Mary spent
in the house of Zacharias and Elizabeth;
think of the converse between those holy
souls during that time.

So let us think of Mary's joy, and of its
lessons for ourselves.

I. Consider the Magnificat as the expres-
sion of her joy, called forth by Elizabeth's
recognition, which gives a sanction, as it
were, to what the Angel had said, and by
which Mary's own faith is confirmed.

THE VISITATION. 61

And Mary's joy is to be a lesson of joy for
us: —

Our Lady sings Magnificat

In tones surpassing sweet ;
And all the Virgins bear their part,

Sitting about her feet —

not merely in heaven, but in the kingdom
of heaven on earth. Mary is the cantrix of
the Church on earth, and all saints take up
the canticle which she begins— " My soul
doth magnify the Lord. ' ' The Magnificat is
the first canticle of the New Testament,
standing in the Gospel story before Zacha-
rias' Benedictus, or Simeon's Nunc Dimittis,
or the Angels' Gloria in Excelsis, just as it
begins each festival in Church, as ' * the
evening and the morning are the first day,"*
giving tone and key, as it were, to all the
days of our life.

Think of Mary singing the Magnificat,
(i) as the representative of humanity, the
second Eve; (2) as the representative of the
Church, in thanksgiving for the Incarnation.
Think of her singing the Magnificat as an

* Gen. i..

62 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

act of praise for all the gifts of grace and
for the hope of glory vouchsafed to us.
(3) Think of her singing the Magnificat as
an act of homage, of personal thanksgiving
for the great things God had done for
her.

And with her we are to join in singing
Magnificat, (i) for all humanity; (2) for
the Church collectively ; and (3) for ourselves
individually. Two great causes for personal
joy are shadowed forth in the Magnificat, for
Mary and for us.

i. It is the expression of Mary's joy for
what God had done for her in His choice of
her; for her unique privilege of being the
Mother of the Incarnate Son — " all genera-
tions shall call me blessed."

And so for ourselves also. Think of our
vocation, of God's predestination and elec-
tion of us, to be born in a Christian land,
within reach of the Sacraments and means
of grace, to a growing and fuller apprecia-
tion of all the treasures and fruits of grace
stored up in the Catholic Church. Think of
our sheltered homes, our educational advan-

THE VISITATION. 63

tages, our spiritual privileges. And what
am I, that I should have been singled out to
be born in a Christian land rather than in
Central Africa, and in the Catholic Church
rather than under some imperfect system;
that I should have been baptized in infancy
and brought within reach of all the gifts of
grace provided for me? "Ye have not
chosen Me, but I have chosen you." * What
am I, that such loving kindness should have
been shown to me ? Do we thank God for
the gifts of grace which surround us so
commonly, or do we take them as a
matter of course ? Do we join in the
thanksgiving, that God has * ' called us to
the knowledge of this grace and faith in
Him?"f

Jesu, what didst Thou find in me,
That Thou hast dealt so lovingly ?

ii. Then think of the second great cause
of personal joy, for ourselves as well as for
Blessed Mary.

It was her act of praise for the beginning
*St. John xv. 1 6. f Baptismal Service.

64 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

of God's work in her, and she is confident
that He will accomplish and perfect that
which He has begun.

And we are to thank Him for what He has
done in and for us ; not only for His gifts of
grace all around and about us, but for His
work within. As we thought in an earlier
meditation, and as Bishop Jeremy Taylor
tells us, we are not only to meditate on the
shameful sins into which we have fallen, but
we are also to praise Him for all the acts of
virtue we have been enabled by His grace
to perform. Ah ! yes; don't think it humility
to disparage grace, but thank God for what
He has done in and by you ; don't shut your
eyes to it ; it is the part of true humility to
look every fact in the face, to see it in its
true light ; to recognize every gift of nature
and of grace, and then to realize our re-
sponsibility for the right use of all, our
responsibility to God from whom they come,
and to our fellow-creatures for whom they
are bestowed. It is not humility to shut
our eyes to any, fact. Yes; " He that is
mighty hath done to me great things" —

THE VISITATION. 65

Mary refers all to Him — "and" therefore
"holy is His Name."

St. Paul recognizes this, how God had
worked in Him; he had "laboured more
abundantly than all " the other apostles —
" yet not I, but the grace of God which
was with me." *

Learn, then, the lesson of thanksgiving.
It is due to God, it is due to yourselves.
Thanksgiving for the past makes us trustful
in the present and hopeful for the future.
What He has done is the pledge of what He
will do. You notice how St. Paul, in all his
epistles, after his introductory salutation,
thanks God for all that He has already done
in those to whom he had ministered; and
then, in the strength of that thanksgiving,
he is full of assurance that He who has be-
gun a good work in them ' ' will perform it
until the day of Jesus Christ." f

See how in the Lord's Prayer, before we
ask anything for ourselves, we are taught to
say, "Hallowed be Thy Name." We are
first to thank God for what He has done;

* 1 Cor. xv. 10. f Phil. i. 6.

66 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

and then, after this, we go on to ask, in sim-
ple, childlike trust, for all we need.

Our petitions are often so faint because
our thanksgiving is so lacking. What
strength should praise and thanksgiving
bring into our lives! What causes for
thanksgiving we have! shelter and protec-
tion in our early years, opportunities and
advantages for preserving our innocence
and cleansing us from evil ! Both are due to
"God our Saviour," in whom we rejoice.
He recalled me when I wandered. He re-
ceived me when I returned; He raised me
when I fell, He upheld me when I stood.
" My soul doth magnify the Lord."

Think, then, how our life ought, in-
deed, to be a life of joy, brought so near
to God. "The joy of the Lord is your
strength." *

Think of those words from Nehemiah as
affording a sort of antiphon to the Magnifi-
cat— the Song of Christian life — " the joy of
the Lord is your strength." Ah! cherish
that thought. Don't let your Christian life

* Nehem. viii. 10.

THE VISITATION. 67

be sad; don't let it create an impression of
sadness or gloom on any around you.

Think of the Offices and Services of the
Christian Church, how full of joy they are.
Think of the great Eucharistic Feast, where-
in we show forth in glad exultation Christ's
Death and the great things He hath done,
and thank Him for His Glorious Resurrec-
tion. And in the Offices of the Church,
what a large proportion of praise there is in
the Psalms and Canticles ! And then, in the
strength of that praise, we offer supplica-
tions. The law of worship is to be the law
of life. We are to go forth from the wor-
ship of the sanctuary to render the service of
our daily life ; Mary's Magnificat giving the
key to the Christian life as it stands in the
very forefront of the New Testament — to a
life of joy. The Christian life should be
" steadfast in faith, joyful through hope, and
rooted in charity." *

That is the mark impressed on it from the
very first, at the Baptismal Font. How
often have we been untrue to it ! Even in

* Baptismal Service.

68 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

our penitence there is to be joy; however
far off we may have wandered, even to a
far country, yet when we have set our faces
to return, and are turned in the right direc-
tion, the gleams of light from our Father's
Home will shine through the darkness
of the night; and, looking toward the
Father's Home, we may be glad even in our
penitence. " I will arise and go to my
Father." *

II. Consider Mary's joy overflowing at the
Visitation. She hastens on the hint of the
Angel to Elizabeth, as the old Collect for
the festival of the Visitation says, ' ' for mu-
tual consolation;" she congratulates her
cousin on the joy that has come to her;
and gives her cause for still higher joy, as
she tells the Angel's message to herself.

In the Magnificat Mary's joy soon passes
from the thought of herself, to that which all
generations are to gain through her, to what
God will do for His people through her and
by her. And here we are to learn a lesson :
* St. Luke xv. 1 8.

THE VISITATION. 69

as the joy of the Lord enters into our lives
we are not to be selfish, to hug our own joy.
"Ah, I can thank God— I am safe!" The
experiences vouchsafed to us are not to be
for ourselves only, but for others. Think of
St. Paul's words, "Whether we be afflicted,

it is for your consolation or

whether we be comforted, it is for your con-
solation and salvation." * Yes, all our expe-
riences are to quicken our sympathy for
others — that we may be able to impart to
others that which God has bestowed on us.
Think of what St. John says: " These things
write we unto you . . . that your joy
might be £ull."f

That is the very law of the Church's mis-
sion, for every man and woman in the Church
— to do our part to call others into the same
fellowship in which we are seeking to abide,
to lead others to the means of grace we our-
selves prize, to warn them against the dan-
gers the reality of which we have ourselves
learned, to lead them along paths we our-
selves are treading.

*2Cor. i. 6. fi St. John i. 4.

70 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

Think of the years of education, the tal-
ents, the influence, the sheltered home, the
protection in early years that have been
vouchsafed to you in order that you may im-
part your knowledge and influence, your
purity and faith to others also. All our gifts
of nature and of grace are bestowed upon us
for our mutual good. This is true Christian
Socialism; not the silly Communism that
would drag all down to one mean level; but
the recognition that all gifts coming from a
common Father, are bestowed for the com-
mon good of all the children of that Father.
All our gifts are to be exercised and culti-
vated for the good of all ; we have no busi-
ness to use and keep any for our own selfish
gratification, but we are to use all for the
common good. Others have a right to ex-
pect from us what our common Father has
bestowed on us. They have a right to share
my joy. We are stewards of God's manifold
gifts, which are all bestowed for the com-
mon good. So let me ask myself, " Have I
done this ? Has my Christian joy, my faith,
my education, overflowed like Mary's joy to

THE VISITATION. 71

others ? " See how the spirit of the Incarnate
Saviour was at once shown forth in
Mary. He came down from Heaven to
earth "for us men and for our sal-
vation," that we " might have life and
have it more abundantly."* He fills her
with His own Spirit of love. " In her
tongue is the law of kindness." And we,
too, are to be Christophers — Christ-bearers —
bringing Him to gladden others' lives.
Think of this in guild-work, in parish-work,
in any missionary enterprise. I, like Mary,
am to carry Christ to others, that, as the
spirit of the Incarnation was shown forth in
Mary at the Visitation, so the power of the
Incarnation may be shown forth in my con-
tact with others, as in hers, as we bring
Christ to them, and Christ brings life and joy.
"When Elizabeth heard the salutation of
Mary, the babe leaped in her womb for
joy."f Yes; there is to be no selfishness,
no isolation in our Christian life, we are to
rejoice in others' good. So think of the
mutual consolation of Blessed Mary and
* St. John x. io. f St- Luke »• 44'

72 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

Elizabeth. "Come hither and hearken
unto me, all ye that fear God, and I will
tell you what he hath done for my soul. " *
That is the spirit of the Visitation. Christ
in me is to overcome my natural shyness.
We English people have a healthy dislike to
cant, we don't wear our hearts on our
sleeves ; but we stand in the opposite danger
of having a false shame in matters of relig-
ion. Let us try to put aside our natural re-
serve and shyness, and be ready to commu-
nicate to others that which we value for
ourselves, that which makes life tolerable
amid all our sorrows, that which has given
us light in its dark places, that which has
cheered us when otherwise we should have
sunk down in sorrow and despair. " O
praise the Lord with me, and let us magnify
His Name together." f This is the spirit of
the Visitation.

III. Think of Mary's joy in the midst of
outward sorrow as exemplified by her Mag-
nificat.

* Ps. Ixvi. 1 6. f Ps. xxxiv. 3.

THE VISITATION. 73

Ah ! it is all well enough in that quiet,
contented home in Hebron, with sympa-
thizing friends to whom an Angel has been
with a message of joy. But soon she is to
go back to Nazareth, to face the shame and
disgrace that awaited her — Joseph's suspi-
cion, the finger of scorn "pointed at her by
that rough, rude population — "ah! she is
no better than others !" Yet she sings Mag-
nificat; she trusts herself to God's loving
care, because " tribulation worketh patience,
and patience experience;" — what we have
endured teaches us what we can endure ; and
experience begets hope, and that hope will
not fail or disappoint us because of the
"love of God shed abroad in our hearts
by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."*

Think of cherishing that spirit of "joy in
the Lord" in the midst of outward sorrow;
in temptation, in failure, in times of anxiety
or bereavement, of dulness of faith; still
protesting the most real belief in spite of
deadness of feeling; showing that true love
is deep down in the will, not merely on the
* Rom. v. 3-5.

74 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

surface of the emotions. While " without
are fightings, and within are fears,"* the
Magnificat is still the utterance of the Chris-
tian heart, just as every day — on Ash
Wednesday and on Good Friday just as
much as at Christmas and at Easter — the
Church sings Magnificat at Evensong, in
different tones indeed and with different
antiphons and settings, but the Magnificat
is never to be put out of our life; in our
joys and in our sorrows we are still to look
up and " magnify the Lord, and to rejoice in
God our Saviour." To look around may
cause dismay, to look up brings rest and
peace.

And when is the Magnificat sung ? Why,
as evening is drawing on, and the shadows
close in, and earthly joy and brightness
fade away: that is the time to sing the
Magnificat, and let "joy in the Lord" be
the strength of our lives; "hidden secret-
ly in His tabernacle from the strife of
tongues; " f like Paul and Silas at midnight
singing praises to the Lord, J and their

* 2 Cor. vii. 5. f Ps. xxxi. 20. \ Acts xvi. 25.

THE VISITATION. 75

praises opened the prison doors. Ah! how
often that may be true in our lives. The
prison-house seems fast, and difficulties are
insurmountable; but only let us sing and
praise God, and the doors are open and a
way is made for us to escape. "At mid-
night," said the Psalmist, "I will rise and
give thanks unto Thee." * " Rejoice in the
Lord alway, and again I say, Rejoice ! " f

i. Think, then, of Mary's joy, and of the
Magnificat as giving the key to the Christian
life.

ii. Of her joy overflowing to others, giv-
ing us the pattern of communicating and
sharing our gifts with others.

iii. Of Mary singing the Magnificat in the
midst of anxieties, teaching us, in whatever
circumstances we find ourselves, to look up
and " rejoice in the Lord."

Let us say Psalm ciii.

* Ps. cxix. 62. f Phil. iv. 4.

FIFTH MEDITATION.

THE BIRTH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST OF
HIS VIRGIN MOTHER.*

LET us meditate upon the Birth of Our
Lord Jesus Christ of His Virgin Mother.

Behold the stable-cave of Bethlehem, where
Mary, when the days were accomplished,
brings forth her First-born Son, and wraps
Him in swaddling clothes, and lays Him in
a manger. And listen to the song of the
angels as they throng around in wondering
adoration, <* Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace, good- will towards men." f

By the Mystery of Thy Holy Incarnation,
by Thy Holy Nativity, good Lord Jesus,
deliver us from our earthliness, from the
lust of the flesh, from the lust of the eye,
and from the pride of life. Conform us
more and more to Thine own Likeness, as

*See Essay in the Appendix. f St. Luke ii. 6-14.
76

BIRTH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. 77

Thou dost make us, by Thy gifts of grace,
partakers of Thy Divine Nature; that in
Thee we may find acceptance with the
Father, both now and at the last; with
Whom, in the Unity of the Holy Ghost,
Thou livest and reignest One God, world
without end. Amen.
Our Father.

In the old Service Books the Office for
Christmas Day contained a " Memorial of St.
Mary at the full accomplishment of the Mys-
tery of the Incarnation." And these are the
words of the Antiphon: — " Behold, all things
are fulfilled which were spoken by the Angel
concerning the Virgin Mary."

"The days were accomplished that she
should be delivered." *

Nine months have passed since the Angel
came with his wondrous message; the
Eternal Word has been enshrined within
her; the Holy Ghost has gradually fashioned
of her substance that Human Body with all
its faculties and powers, and the Word has
* St. Luke ii.6.

78 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

been " made Flesh."* The Creator has
assumed a created Nature. It is a mystery
before which we can only bow in adoration ;
and yet this mystery is the pattern of our
own spiritual life ; the historical mystery of
the Incarnation is to have its counterpart in
our own spiritual experience. And so we
will meditate on the Birth of Our Lord Jesus
Christ of his Virgin Mother, and its spiritual
lessons ; we will consider the truth of the In-
carnation and how it is to be re-enacted in us.

We will see how to build up ourselves, our
moral and spiritual life, upon the foundation
of our most holyfaith.f We shall note the
value of clear, dogmatic expression of the
truth, as we carefully consider certain points
of doctrine and the lessons contained in
them.

What is the truth of the Incarnation?

There are four great points we have to
keep in mind, and each has its spiritual les-
son for our life.

i. He who is born is Very God, of One
Essence with the Father.

* St. John i. 14. f St. Jude xx.

BIRTH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. 79

ii. He is Very Man, of the substance of
the Virgin Mary, His Mother.

iii. These two Natures, the Divine and the
Human, are indissolubly linked together in
the Unity of His One Divine Person.

iv. All this is accomplished by the oper-
ation of the Holy Ghost. The Only-Begotten
Son of God is " conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the Virgin Mary."

Let us consider each of these truths, for its
practical importance.

I. He who is born is Very God, of One
Essence and Being with His Father.

Mary is truly the God-bearer — Theotokos.
This title was contended for by the Church,
not so much for her honour, as to protect
the truth of the Incarnation. She is the
Mother, according to His Human Nature,
of Him who is God. Yes ; it is not the
highest of created intelligences that is born
of her ; then the gulf between creature and
Creator had not been bridged over; then
Heaven and earth had not been really united.
No ; it is God who shows Himself in our na-

8o THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

ture; the Very and Eternal Son of God, "by
whom all things were made." He, and none
other, "was made Flesh and dwelt among
us," and manifested a glory that could be-
long to none other than "the Only Begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth." * He
gives us by the Incarnation a twofold rev-
elation; He shows us what God is, and what
man, made in God's Image, should be.
"The glory of God," says St. Paul, "shines
forth in the face of Jesus Christ."! We
know now what God is because we know
what Jesus was; and what Jesus was on
earth, that God must ever be, in His hatred
for sin and His love for the sinner; He has
translated into language that we can under-
stand, the language of human conduct, the
Divine perfections. We know now what the
Love of God is — it means self-sacrifice and
compassion; the Holiness of God — it means
readiness to suffer anything rather than
swerve from true obedience. " See in My
Life," Jesus Christ says, " See in My Death,
the witness, the testimony to the Divine Na-

* St. John i. 14. f 2 Cor. iv. 6.

BIRTH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. 81

ture!" Yes, from Jesus, and from Jesus
alone, we can learn with absolute certainty
what God is ; and we learn what man, made
in God's Image, may be. Man was made in
God's Image that he might be conformed to
God's Likeness.

Just consider for a moment — it is a pain-
ful thought, and yet it is well to face it —
consider the absolute impossibility of God
assuming the nature of any created being
lower than man. He could not have become
incarnate in any irrational being, for there
would have been nothing for God to fill up ;
there would be no correspondence between
the creature and the Creator. God, who is
Love, can only take the nature of one who,
as a moral being, is made in His Image and
is capable of reproducing that Love. Man
can do this because of his natural capa-
city for corresponding with the Divine
Nature.

Let us learn from this a true missionary
zeal : to do all that we can both at home and
in the world, by prayer and by labour, to
win men to their restoration to God's Image,

82 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

to be conformed to His Likeness. " O God of
all the nations of the earth, remember the
multitudes of the heathen who, though cre-
ated in Thine Image, are perishing in their
ignorance; and grant that by the labours
and prayers of Thy Holy Church, they may
be delivered from all superstition and unbe-
lief, and brought to worship Thee through
Him whom Thou hast sent to be our Sal-
vation, the Resurrection and the Life of
all the faithful, Thy Son Jesus Christ our
Lord."*

And what does this mean for ourselves?
We are made partakers of the Divine
Nature. We are not partakers of a holy
man, but, as St. Peter says, " of the Divine
Nature; " f we are made, really and truly,
" children of God." This is no mere expres-
sion of fondness, but it tells of actual rela-
tionship. Not that we are made partakers
of His Infinity, or of His Eternity, but
of His Moral Nature — His Justice, His
Love, His Purity, His Righteousness.
These I am to set before me ; nothing short
* St. Francis Xavier. f 2 St. Peter i. 4.

BIRTH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. 83

of this; this is the standard for Christian
life. So in my daily life I am to ask, " How
would Christ have acted in my circum-
stances ? How would He have me act ?
How would Christ fulfil my duties, do my
work, fill my place, meet my difficulties, turn
to account all my capacities and opportuni-
ties ? " This is to be the law and inspiration
of my whole life ; not only of my outward
acts, but of all my inward thoughts and de-
sires. There is to be a manifestation of
the Divine Nature in me.

II. The Eternal Son of God, of One

Nature with the Father, was made Very
Man, of the substance of the Virgin Mary
His Mother. " He took not on Him the
nature of Angels, but He took on Him the
seed of Abraham." * He was really and
truly made Perfect Man, of His Mother's
substance, having a likeness to her; really
and truly deriving from her that Body in
which He lived, in which He died, in which
He now reigns; the Holy Spirit fashioning
*Heb. ii. 16.

84 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

that Sacred Humanity of His Mother's sub-
stance. Not only was He Son of Man, but
" of the seed of Abraham," and " of the seed
of David." * He had a real strain of ances-
try running down to Him.

(i.) Consider how He was made " Perfect
Man." Taking, first, all the different ele-
ments of our human nature; not merely a
Human Body, but a reasonable Soul; a Mind
with memory, understanding, and imagina-
tion; a Heart with every true human affec-
tion, of love, and of hatred against evil. He
loved His Mother, His friends at Bethany;
He loved His own specially chosen friend, St.
John, His bosom companion, with a particu-
lar, individualizing love.f He looked around
with anger and indignation at the hardness
of heart and hypocrisy of the Pharisees. I
Affections of joy and sorrow belonged to
that Human Heart; He rejoiced with ex-
ceeding joy, and His Soul was " exceeding
sorrowful, even unto death. " {j " For the

* Rom. i. 3. f St. John xi. 5; xiii. 23.

J St. Mark iii. 5.

\ St Luke x. 21 ; St. Matt. xxvi. 38.

BIRTH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. 85

joy that was set before Him He endured the
Cross, despising the shame." * " Who in the
days of His flesh, offering up prayers and
supplications with strong crying and tears
unto Him that was able to save Him from
death, was heard for His reverence."! Every
true human affection was found in the
Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, Very God and
Very Man.

And every affection of ours is to be sancti-
fied, not one cut off; every one is to be bap-
tised, christened, exercised in true Christian
energy.

And He had a Human Will, so distinct
from the Divine Will, with which, neverthe-
less, it ever beat in harmony, that He could
say, " Father, not My will, but Thine be
done."!

So every element of our nature, every fac-
ulty of ours, from the lowest to the highest,
is to be brought under the control of relig-
ion ; no one part of it is to be left outside ;
the body is to be trained for God's service,
the mind disciplined and brought under the

* Heb. xii. 2. f Heb. v. 7. J St. Luke xxii. 42.

86 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

yoke of Christ, the affections chastened, the
will is to be at once strengthened and con-
trolled. All the different parts of our life —
home-life, social-life, our work and our
prayer — all the subject-matter of life is to be
penetrated with religion. Is this so, in all
the details of my life ? Or am I leaving
religion for Sunday, and letting domestic
matters remain outside its influence ? Am I
careless in my accounts, unpunctual in my
duties, untidy in little matters ? With a
Christian we might almost say the difference
between "secular" and "religious" is
abolished. "The Word," than which
naught is higher, "is made flesh," than
which naught is lower, so that " whether we
eat or drink, or whatsoever we do " we can
"do all to the glory of God," because we
can do all in the Name and after the ex-
ample of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of
God.*

Think, then, of this law of sanctification
for the whole of human nature and the whole
of human life.

* i Cor. x. 31 ; Col. iii. 17.

BIRTH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. 87

(2.) Again; the Son of God was made
Very Man, Perfect Man ; not only assuming
our nature in its integrity, but taking it and
using it according to the laws of human
nature, and so, subject to its limitations.
The finite is not made infinite because the
Infinite Person used it. There were restric-
tions in His Life as Man. In His human
nature He could die; He needed food and
rest; He was subject to fatigue. Why
should people find a difficulty in accepting
any limitations to our Lord's Human knowl-
edge? He, the Eternal Word, knew all
things; but why should we shrink from the
thought that, as the Almighty Power of the
Eternal Word was restrained so that it did
not at all times overflow His Body, and
miracles were not the ordinary law of His
Life, but were reserved for great moral occa-
sions ; so it was with the Infinite Wisdom of
the Eternal Word; it was restrained from
overflowing the Human Mind? For the
purposes of His mission His Mind was Di-
vinely illuminated. Christ came to teach
the truths it concerned man to know ; about

88 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

God — His Being and Character; about man —
his origin and destiny, the true standard of
his life, his relation to God and means of
approaching Him; all this it was necessary
for us to know. But Christ did not come to
teach all those subjects that are on the bor-
der-land, so to speak, of religion — historical,
scientific matters, and so on. His mission
was to teach religion, and for that purpose
He inspired His Human Soul.

So think how, in our individual life, we
are to accept the limitations that Almighty
God has imposed upon each of us. It is an
accepted fact that all cannot do the same
thing; all have not the same powers, mental
or bodily. We are responsible for using the
gifts that He has given us. Christ is to be
manifested in our nature, in our gifts, in our
limited sphere and capacities, whatever these
may be. There is one limitation we must
all accept. We are not presumptuously to
overtax our strength, or to disregard our
health, or the dangers which may come from
overstraining mind or body, heart or spirit.

Again. He became Very Man, Perfect

BIRTH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. 89

Man, passsing through all the stages of hu-
man life and development. He was subject
to the law of growth; His body grew in
stature, His mind likewise advanced in wis-
dom— St. Luke says so, and more — that He
not only " increased in wisdom and stature,"
but also "in favour with God and man."*
There was a moral and a spiritual develop-
ment in the Humanity of the Eternal Son.
Does this startle anyone? Is it inconsistent
with His being Very God? Why? Everyone
will at once acknowledge the difference be-
tween the perfection of innocence — the blame-
lessness of childhood — and the perfection of
ripened manhood when temptation has been
met and overcome. There is a peculiar and
attractive sweetness and grace attaching to
the innocence of a little child; and yet, if
that life be cut off in childhood, we feel that
something is lost ; that innocence might have
developed into mature development; there
has been no budding forth of all those gif ts
and graces that existed in germ.
Just so was it with Jesus Christ. His Hu-
*St. Lukeii. 52.

9o THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

manity was flawless from the first; from the
cradle it was perfect according to God's
original design; all was in perfect cor-
respondence with the Divine Will, every im-
pulse of that nature was holy; yet Holy
Scripture tells us that "He learned obedi-
ence by the things which He suffered." * He
was perfected through suffering; He mani-
fested an experimental perfection; He met
temptation and overcame it, and so devel-
oped the contrary virtues. That Human
Nature was more and more made the Instru-
ment of the Divine Will, in obedience to
which He increasingly manifested fresh
graces and virtues, as ' ' through the Eternal
Spirit He offered Himself without spot to
God."f

Just so is it to be with our life; we
must be content to grow to perfection;
we must be humble. and we must be patient;
we can't become saints all at once ; we can't
fly from earth to heaven; no, we have to
climb rung after rung of the ladder, passing
from stage to stage; we must be content to
* Heb. v. 8. f Heb. ix. 14.

BIRTH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. 91

be first "babes in Christ," fed with milk and
then with solid meat.* How often we ignore
this law with ourselves and with others !
How impatient we are with those committed
to our care in matters of secular learning!
or in matters spiritual, in dogmatic teaching;
perhaps we ourselves have just grasped some
point, and now we cannot think how others
can be so stupid, so blind, as not to see
what is clear to us! We are not content
that others should grow. We need patience
with ourselves and with others; we are
apt to want to be great saints, or nothing at
all!

Ah! Jesus gives us the lesson: — " First
the blade, then the ear; after that the full
corn in the ear." f

See how this is represented to us in the
Sacraments. Baptism is styled by our Lord,
"the New Birth, "J i.e. it is the planting
of the germ of spiritual life, which is to be
carefully guarded, watchfully cherished, and
by degrees developed.

*i Cor. iii. 2; Heb. v. 13, 14. fSt. Mark iv. 28.
\ St. John iii. 3.

92 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

Again, the Sacrament of Christ's Body and
Blood is our spiritual food. Food is to be
assimilated, and by it we gradually gain
strength. We sometimes hear it said that
"one Communion is enough to make a
saint ! " Well, if one Communion is enough,
one Communion was not intended to make a
saint. If God had so intended, the Blessed
Sacrament would not have been given us as
"food," and under the outward form of the
ordinary daily food of the people of the land
— bread and wine. It is the "Bread of
Life,"* Jesus says; and by receiving Com-
munion after Communion our spiritual life
is to be nourished, strengthened and devel-
oped; our sinful bodies being made clean by
contact with, by being interpenetrated by,
His own Sinless Body; and our sin-stained
souls more and more washed in His most
Precious Blood; He, more and more, by His
grace dwelling in us; and we, more and
more, by faith, by obedience, by love, dwell-
ing in Him.

So the lesson we learn from this thought

* St. John vi. 33.

BIRTH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. 93

is Patience — patience with ourselves and with
others; and Humility. This we may well
learn from the consideration of our Lord in
His Sacred Humanity gradually growing up
to perfection.

III. Let us consider, shortly, how the Two
Natures, the Human and the Divine, are
joined together in One Person. " Not by con-
fusion of Substance, but by Unity of Per-
son," as the Athanasian Creed says.

Yes, so is it, remember, in the Blessed
Sacrament. Note the analogy between the
Incarnation and the Holy Eucharist. It is
a common devotional expression to speak of
* ' the miracle of the Blessed Sacrament. It
is, really and truly, no miracle at all. It is a
mystery. A miracle involves the suspension
of the ordinary laws of nature by the inter-
vention of some higher law. But this is not
the case with the Blessed Sacrament. If the
Bread and Wine, according to the common,
vulgar idea of Transubstantiation, ceased to
be, were changed into the Body and Blood
of Christ, if one natural substance took the

94 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

place of another natural substance, this would
be a miracle; as at Cana, when the water
was made wine; or, supposing our Lord in
the wilderness had done as Satan suggested,
and changed the stones into bread; this
would have been a miracle. There is noth-
ing of this in the Holy Eucharist. The
Bread and Wine remain exactly what they
were before ; their taste, touch and smell are
the same, and they are liable to decay. For
purposes of nature, for the nourishment of
our lower life, they remain precisely what
they were before. But by consecration by
the Word and Spirit of God they are made
vehicles for enshrining and communicating
another and a higher Substance, i.e. the
Body and Blood of Christ, to be the nourish-
ment of our spiritual life. ' ' The bread that
we break, is it not the communion of the
Body of Christ ? The cup which we bless,
is it not the communion of the Blood of
Christ ? " * It is the consecration and taking
up of earthly elements to serve a heavenly
and spiritual purpose.

*i Cor. x. 1 6.

BIRTH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. 95

And just so is it in the Incarnation.
There is no miracle, but a great mystery in
the Union of the Divine and Human Natures
in One Person. God is not changed into
man, and the Manhood is not made Divine ;
but Human Nature, in its perfection, is
taken up into the Divine in the Person of
Christ, without any change or impairing of
His original dignity. And He acted in that
Human Nature in strict conformity with its
laws. The only miracle about the Incarna-
tion was in the Virgin Birth — in the man-
ner of His entrance into the world.*

And just so it is in our own spiritual life.
" I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I
live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."
The communication of grace does not take
the place of my personality, it does not ex-
tinguish my human life ; but it is given to me
to enable me to live more truly — a true human
life; to live indeed under restraint, the " old
man is crucified; " but I am not destroyed by
that crucifixion of my old nature; "never-

* See Bible Teachings (on St. John vi.) by the Rev. R. M.
Benson, ch. xxiii.

96 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

theless, I live " more truly, more fully, more
freely, "yet not I" according to my own
natural impulses and desires, "but Christ
liveth in me," the real motive and power of
my life, " and the life which I now live in
the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave Himself for me." *

IV. One point more. The Union af the
Divine and Human Natures in the Person of
the Eternal Word is effected by the Spirit's
Power. Christ was "conceived by the Holy
Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." Mary was
His sole earthly parent ; and so the entail of
original sin is cut off.

Here we have the one difference between
our Lord's Human Nature and our own.
In Him there was simply the development of
holiness, the going ' * from strength to
strength," from one virtue to another;
there were no rebellious elements to re-
strain, no wrongful tendencies to overcome.
In us "the flesh lusteth against the spirit,
and the spirit against the flesh, "f With us

* Gal. ii. 20; Rom. vi. 6. f Gal. v. 17.

BIRTH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. 97

there must be not only the formation of good
habits, but the undoing of evil ones; the
"putting off" more and more, of "the old
man," the "putting on," more and more, of
"the new."* So we have this additional
reason for cultivating humility and patience.

Ah ! life is so difficult, so hard, because we
have to bear the consequences of past sins.
It is so hard to keep from wandering
thoughts in prayer, because I have let my
imagination have its own way. I have
allowed this or that evil thought, contrary
to love, or to purity, or to humility, to get
possession of my heart, and now it claims its
place there; it has to be put out by force. I
have to unravel the tangle of my past life, as
well as to weave habits of holiness.

"Conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of
the Virgin Mary." Yes; it is not by human
or by natural means that the birth of the Son
of God in our nature is effected, either in
the historical Incarnation, or in its spiritual
re-enactment in our own experience. "As
many as received Him, to them gave He
* Col. iii. 9, 10.

98 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

power to become the sons of God, who
are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."*
There is the counterpart in our spiritual
experience of the miraculous conception of
Him who was "born of the Virgin Mary."
" Not by might, nor by power, but by My
Spirit," saith the Lord of Hosts. "f The
Angel came with the message, and Joseph
had to guard both the Mother and the Child;
but neither Gabriel nor Joseph had aught to
do with the formation of the Child; that
was by the Spirit's power. J

And some minister of God may come to
us with the word of vocation, or some friend
may be the guide of our spiritual life, but
the Spirit of God alone can produce the life
within. Remember it in your life, in the
regard of all earthly instrumentality; the
priest may be the holiest, the guide the
wisest, the friend the dearest; they may
help, but the utmost they can do is what
Gabriel and Joseph did for Mary; the Spirit
must communicate life.

* St John i. 12, 13. t Zech. iv. 6. J St. Luke i. 35.

BIRTH OF OUR LORD.JESUS CHRIST. 99

And as in your life, so in your work;
you can but do what Gabriel did and Joseph ;
you cannot create spiritual life in others ;
you can guard it, you can bring this and
that one under the influence of the Spirit
of God; you can do as the bystanders did
at the grave of Lazarus; you can remove
the stone out of the way, in order that Jesus
Christ may have the chance, so to speak, of
getting at that soul. But He is the Res-
urrection of those who are spiritually dead
as well as the Life of those who live.*

Don't try to impress yourselves too much
on others; it is too much the tendency of
human friendship. Do not try to play the
part of human father to Jesus Christ in the
soul; learn to stand by, and let the Spirit
do His work. We are not so much to go be-
fore the human soul as to follow after it.
We are not to seek to mould others accord-
ing to our own pattern, but to render
them mobile and plastic to the Spirit's
dealing; encourage them to follow Christ,
to be obedient and docile to His Word ; that

*St. Johnxi. 39, 25, 26.

ioo THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

His likeness may be reproduced in them, as
in us, by the operation of the Holy Spirit of
God.

Think, then, of this Mystery of the Incar-
nation :

i. That we are made partakers of the
Divine Nature.

ii. That the Divine Life is to be mani-
fested in our life and in our circumstances.

iii. And that all this is to be by the
Spirit's power.

"Oh!" you say, "this is something too
high for me to rise to ! " Remember Mary
shrank and shuddered at the message; but
the Angel said, "Fear not, Mary," for "the
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the
power of the Highest shall overshadow
thee."

Let us say Psalm ci.

SIXTH MEDITATION.

THE PURIFICATION OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

Let us meditate upon the Purification of
the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Contemplate the Mother, standing in the
Temple Court, holding her Child in her
arms, waiting to offer Him to the Lord, and
to present the offering for her purification.

O Almighty God, most Holy and most
Merciful, purge us, we pray Thee, from all
defilement of flesh and spirit, that we may
worthily draw nigh to Thee in prayer and all
the means of grace, and be more and more
purged from evil; that so, as living mem-
bers of the mystical Body of Thy dear Son,
we may find acceptance with Thee now and
at the last, for His sake in Whose Name we
pray.

Our Father.

We have come to the consideration of

101

102 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

another Mystery of Joy, the last of the
Joyful Mysteries; with a note of warning
and prediction of coming woe in the words
of Simeon — "a sword shall pierce through
thy own soul also."*

It was a great day for Blessed Mary when
she took her Child, God's own Son in our
nature, to present Him, the offspring of her
womb, to His Heavenly Father in the
Temple; and when she too herself for the
first time after His Birth and the accom-
plishment of the Angel's message, entered
the courts of the Temple. We may be sure
she sang her Magnificat over again, as her
solemn thanksgiving for the great things
God had done for her and in her.

I. Let us think of her now in the Purifi-
cation, as giving us an example of diligence
and perseverance in God's worship, and in
the use of the means of grace.

The Law of Purification and Presentation
did not strictly apply to her case and that
of her Child. There was no need of purifi-

* St. Luke ii. 35.

THE PURIFICATION. 103

cation in that Child-bearing; she had con-
tracted no stain; in that Birth there was
nothing in the least degree contrary to per-
fect purity, for He was "conceived by the
Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary."
Nor was there any need of redemption in
His case ; He was indeed Himself the Priest
and Victim, the First-born Son Who, by the
sacrifice of Himself, was to redeem all.
Neither was there any need in His case of
the Circumcision — the rite that was a badge
of sin, and told of the need of mortifying
unruly desires. In Him there was nothing
that swerved from perfect correspondence
with God's design. But no dispensation had
been given, so no exemption was claimed.

So it was with our Lord at His Baptism.
He came to Jordan with the rest to receive
that which was a sign of the washing away of
sin, in order that He might "fulfil all right-
eousness,"* not Himself to receive cleans-
ing, but to sanctify water to the mystical
washing away of our sin. We have a simi-
lar example of this diligence in using the

* St. Matt. iii. 15.

104 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

means of grace in Mary's yearly visit to the
Temple. It was not of obligation on the
woman's part, as it was with men ; but she
did not excuse herself, or urge the plea
that it was difficult to leave her Child at
home with the rough crowd at Nazareth, or
that there was no need for her to go up to
the Temple where the services were so per-
functorily performed; she was better em-
ployed at home with her Child ! Ah ! what
plausible reasons might have been urged!
but none were used. His parents went
yearly to the feast.* Blessed Mary gives us
an example of diligence, of faithfulness and
earnestness in seeking God in all appointed
means of grace.

Then let us examine our regularity in the
use of the means of grace — times of prayer,
sacraments, fasting-days, rules of self-
denial, and so on. And not only our dili-
gence, but our earnestness in our use of
them ; coming to the Sacraments with right
dispositions, with a real spiritual appetite,
with "hunger and thirst after righteous-
* St. Luke ii. 41.

THE PURIFICATION. 105

ness."* Do we seek to excuse ourselves,
asking, "Need I?" "Must I?" This
surely is not a Christian question. A bet-
ter would be, "May I?" "Is there any
means by which I may serve [God better,
by which I may express more truly my
loving sorrow for past sin ? " We are not
to serve in the spirit of bondage, but as
loving children in the spirit of adoption. f
Let us set before us Blessed Mary as an
example of diligence and earnestness in
approaching God, in the use of all the means
of grace.

II. Consider the reward of this diligence
and faithfulness, of which we have the
pledge and example in the Purification.
"Unknown" she is, "yet well-known." {
She goes up to the Temple like any other
mother, but she is recognized by Simeon
and Anna, and she receives a further con-
firmation of her faith in their recognition.
And they too had been purified by long
discipline and waiting, and now their faith-

* St. Matt. v. 6. f Rom. iii. 15. J 2 Cor. vi. 9.

io6 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

fulness is rewarded by the vision vouchsafed
to them. They had waited long years, look-
ing for redemption in Jerusalem, and Sim-
eon had received the promise that he should
not pass away till all was fulfilled, until he
had seen the Lord's Christ. There was so
much that was perfunctory in the Temple
rites; still they persevered, and lifted up
their hearts to God. And in the end they
are rewarded; Mary comes to the Temple,
and their spiritual vision is illumined.
Simeon sees that Mother, and in her Child
he recognizes the Lord's Christ, come to
redeem the world. It is the pure — the meek
— who "see God."* He takes Him up in
his arms and sings his Nunc _Dimittis% and
blesses the parents. Ah ! see the reward of
patient waiting on God.

Sometimes some of you are tempted to
give up attendance at Church, or at the
Sacraments, because the ministration is so
irreverent, or because so much is lacking.
"It is so little to my taste, I had better
absent myself altogether." No; if others
* St. Matt. v. 3.

THE PURIFICATION. 107

are cold, go and be a centre of devotion
yourself; if others absent themselves, be the
more regular and earnest yourself; look
through the unworthiness of the minister to
Him Who is the Great High-Priest, Who
stands in the midst of the seven golden
candlesticks that symbolized the Universal
Church, Who holds in His Hand the seven
stars that represent the Priesthood of the
Church.* Look to Him for the reward of
your faithful attendance, your devout wor-
ship. " In every place " and rite " where I
record My Name, I will come unto you and
bless you."f And so in your own private
devotions. It may be your prayers are dull
and dead; your meditation is irksome — a
waste of time, it seems ; you have no light.
Ah, but Simeon and Anna had waited a
long, long time before the Vision came at
last and repaid all their waiting ; so ' ' though
the vision tarry, wait for it ; because it will
surely come, it will not tarry. " J God keeps
us waiting for the answer to our prayer
(not only for external benefits, but for spir-
* Rev. i. 13, 1 6, 20. f Ex. xx. 24. J Hab. ii. 3.

io8 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

itual graces also), not because He is grudg-
ing in His gifts, but because He would
develop in us a greater capacity to receive.

So learn the lesson of faithful, patient,
persevering diligence; and see the reward
that in the end comes.

III. Consider the reason of the delay on
Blessed Mary's part in going up to the
Temple.

It was not until forty days were past, six
weeks since the Birth of her Child, that
she visits the Temple. Why not before ?
Bethlehem was but a little way from the
Holy City.

She waited " until the days of her Purifi-
cation were accomplishd. " O how she
longed meanwhile to go into the courts of
the Lord ! * ' O how amiable are Thy dwell-
ings, Thou Lord of Hosts ! My soul hath a
desire and longing to enter into the courts
of the Lord ; my heart and my flesh rejoice
in the living God ! " * Have we such long-
ings ? — not merely to enter into the earthly

* Ps. Ixxxiv. I, 2.

THE PURIFICATION. 109

sanctuary, but for some nearer approach to
God in the spiritual life; to be able to speak
more freely to Him in prayer; to hear His
Word more clearly speaking in our con-
science; to have our faith more clear and
strong — those mists of doubt and temptation
rolled away; to be free from that clinging
temptation which is haunting us and dogging
our path ? Ah ! but wait patiently * ' until
the days of purification are accomplished,"
until the days of discipline are over; until a
greater clearness of conscience and purity of
heart may enable us to hear His Voice
speaking to us.

Think of Mary's obedience to the Law
concerning Purification, as laid down in Lev.
xii., which subjected the mother after child-
bearing to a ceremonial cleansing from her
defilement. All these provisions of the cere-
monial Law are ^full of spiritual significance.
They were intended as object lessons before
the eyes of the people witnessing to the holi-
ness of God and the need of holiness in ap-
proaching Him. Just as contact with a
leper or with death communicated ritual de-

THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

filement and needed ceremonial purification,
so was it with the handing on of life. It
was the handing on of a tainted, marred
nature ; not as God originally made it, but fal-
len and disordered. Therefore it involved de-
filement, and cleansing was required. The
rites for purification after childbirth wit-
nessed to original sin. Ah ! we have need
to remember that quite as much for our en-
couragement as for warning. We are not
unf alien creatures in an unf alien world; it is
not safe for us to use all the pleasures that
are in themselves innocent. We have a nat-
ural tendency to sink down to earthly things ;
and the world, in its fallen condition, has a
tendency to drag us down in our fallen con-
dition ; to act as a screen — shutting God out
from our sight. There is therefore need of
self -discipline, of self-denial in this and that
particular, of keeping under the body, of
losing the lower to gain the higher
life.

And think what a lesson of comfort there
is here! God knows all that; He knows the
condition of our fallen nature, and He takes

THE PURIFICATION. ill

all into account. He knows its drift, how
easily we go astray; how the flesh is weak
even when the spirit is willing. We must
come before Him in humble, penitent ac-
knowledgment of our fallen estate, con-
fessing and bewailing not only our sin but
our sin fulness. ' ' In sin hath my mother
conceived me;" therefore, "make me a clean
heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within
me."*

Scripture expresses our experience. The
lower nature wars against the higher; " the
flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit
against the flesh, so that ye cannot do the
things that ye would." f "The good that I
would, I do not; but the evil which I would
not, that I do." "I see another law in my
members, warring against the law of my
mind, and bringing me into captivity to the
law of sin which is" in my members." J

I am sure that the distinction between
"sin" and "sinfulness" is a very important
and a very helpful one. So often a day
passes, and we come to our self-examination

* Ps. li. 5, 10. f Gal. v. 17. | Rom. vii. 19, 23.

112 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

at night, and we are not conscious of having
committed any sin during the day. Then
people get terribly frightened, and they
think, " Dear me, what a state I must be in,
to think I can have passed a day and not be
able to find a sin ! " But let us not disparage
the work of the Holy Ghost. What is the
use of the grace of God, if it is not to keep
us from sin ? What is Holy Communion
for, but to keep us clean from sin ? There
ought to be many days on which we
commit no definite sin of thought, or
word, or deed. Perhaps we have had
no special temptation. Or perhaps grace
has been extremely powerful: you have
felt it playing about you, you have
been conscious of a higher power within.
But notwithstanding this, we know that all
has not been quite right within; there are
the workings of evil there — of meanness, of
jealousy, of self-indulgence; they have not
come to a head, they have not been brought
to a point, but they are there. " Though I
have not sinned, I feel there has been the
need of a strong hand to keep these work-

THE PURIFICATION. 113

ings of evil down. I know I carry about a
sinful nature !"

So let us remember this distinction
between " sin " and " sinfulness," and beg of
God gradually to cleanse us from our sinful-
ness as well as from our sin.

This helps us to understand the distinction
between the special cleansing given us in
Absolution, and the cleansing power of the
Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Com-
munion. Absolution is especially for the
doing away of sins. Where a sin has come
in and clogged my spiritual life and hindered
the free flow of regenerate life, absolution
is the putting forth of a spiritual power to
break down the barrier, and to cleanse away
that which clogs the spiritual life. But Holy
Communion — we are to come to that after
repentance, with our sin forgiven and our
conscience at ease, by our own drawing near
to God and making our peace with Him, or,
if need be, by special confession and priestly
absolution. On the other hand, the Blessed
Sacrament of the Altar is for the cleansing
of our sinfulness, for the infusion of our

ii4 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

Lord's holy Nature to remedy all the defile-
ments of our fallen nature, " that our sinful
bodies may be made clean by His ' all-holy *
Body, and our ' sin-stained ' souls washed
in His most precious Blood by the com-
munication of His life."

Think how we may have to wait, like
Blessed Mary, for some nearer approach to
Him, some deeper sanctification of our
spiritual life, some fresh entrance into the
Temple of the Lord, until, at last, the days
of our purification are accomplished ! Some-
times we are so lacking in patience and
humility — we want to die right off! We
don't know what need there is of purging
first, of cleansing within and without. We
have to wait for the resurrection of the body
and the entire rectifying of our nature to
usher in the life of the world to come; and
meanwhile we must use all the means of
grace at hand, all the sacraments, all the
disappointments and trials of life, all the
friction and vexations of life, that our earth-
liness and selfishness may be more and more
done away. And then, when all the discipline

THE PURIFICATION. 115

of life is done, there is still the purification
of the intermediate state — the seeing our-
selves as we are, as we see Him in His glory.
" I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the
ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee; where-
fore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and
ashes,"* in ever deepening penitence, until
at last in perfected penitence we find per-
fected purification, and enter the Temple of
the Lord to present the Christ-child formed
within us, in our life, our talents, our
gifts, our circumstances, by the Spirit's
power.

Once more, consider the spiritual signifi-
cance of the special law of purification after
childbearing to which the Blessed Mother
was subject, as laid down in Levit. xii. We
find that in the case of purification after the
birth of a man-child (with which we are
alone concerned) there were these two
stages, symbolical of two stages of progress
in the spiritual life. First, for seven days
the mother was excluded from fellowship
with ordinary society. On the eighth day
* Job xlii. 5.

ii6 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

the mother entered on the second stage of
her purification; she was restored to the
company of her fellows, she was allowed to
enter upon social intercourse; but still for
thirty -three days more she was excluded
from participation in the Temple rites; she
could not yet enter the Temple of the
Lord.

So, remember, there are stages of purifi-
cation in our spiritual experience. There
is a ceasing to do evil, then a learning to do
well; a putting off of the old man and his
deeds, and a putting on of the new man
which after God is created in righteousness
and true holiness.* There are two conver-
sions of which St. Bernard speaks. He says
that there is need of conversion from the
world to self ; like the prodigal son, who
"came to himself" and found the world
unsatisfying; and then there is the second
conversion, from self to God ; first we have
to gain a true possession of ourselves, and
then to use that possession in giving our-
selves to God, losing sight of self in seeking

* Ephes. iv. 22-25.

THE PURIFICATION. 117

the glory of God and the good of our
brethren. So again we learn of the pro-
gressive stages of spiritual development.
Don't hurry people, don't drive the flock too
fast and hard, and don't be impatient with
your own slow growth. And in the divi-
sions of the days of purification we may find
a spiritual signification. The seven days
will represent the Old Testament dispensa-
tion— the purgative way, under the Law.
Then, on the eighth day, when the Saving
Name is given, that is closed. But there are
thirty-three days more — a day for each year
of the earthly life of the Incarnate Son,
so making up the number forty, in Holy
Scripture signifying the full number of pro-
bation and discipline. Yes, we are to follow
the Lord in all the stages and departments
of His life — in the hidden life at Nazareth ;
in His tempted life in the wilderness ; in His
social life with His disciples and His friends
at Bethany; in His ministerial life, "going
about doing good," spending and being spent
for others ; ever full of compassion for us in
our needs, in toil for others, in works of

n8 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

mercy, corporal and spiritual; in His devo-
tional life, in His nights of prayer, in His
early mornings given to communion with His
Heavenly Father, in His lifting up His eyes
to Heaven in the midst of work, putting
Himself in conscious communion with His
Father. And then, likewise, in His suffering
life. Ah! yes; to follow Him in each of
those thirty-three days, in each stage and de-
partment of His life ; to set Him before us
in each department of our life, in our domes-
tic life, in our devotional life, in all the ex-
periences of sorrow and suffering that may
befall us. Ah! Blessed Lord, grant that I
may truly follow Thee step by step, as Thou
dost present Thyself to me as my perfect
example; day by day putting off the old
man, and imitating Thee, becoming more
and more conformed to Thy perfect likeness ;
in the purgative way and the illuminative
way filling up the days of my purification,
till in the unitive way I may present the
fruit of grace formed within me, and in the
Temple courts may sing Magnificat for the
great things that Thou has accomplished.

THE PURIFICATION. 119

" For He that is mighty hath magnified me,
and holy is His Name ! "

Let us say Psalm xxvi.

SEVENTH MEDITATION.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.

Let us meditate upon the Flight of the Holy
Family into Egypt. Contemplate the vision
beheld by St. John.* The woman clothed
with the sun, with the moon under her
feet, and having a crown of twelve stars
upon her head; travailing in birth to bring
forth the Man-Child which shall rule the
world. And see over against her the mon-
strous beast, the great red dragon, standing
before the woman, ready to devour her
Child. And the dragon persecutes the
woman and is wroth with her, and makes
war with the remnant of her seed which
keep the commandments of God and the
testimony of Jesus Christ.

O Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of
God, who wast in the world that was made

* Rev. xii.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 121

by Thee, and the world knew Thee not;
who didst come to Thine own, and Thine
own received Thee not;* pardon, we be-
seech Thee, all our past resistance to Thy
grace, and grant that now henceforth we,
falling into rank beneath Thy banner, may
show ourselves Thy true servants and sol-
diers, ready to bear the opposition of the
world, the uprisings of our own fallen
nature, and the assaults of Satan, for Thy
Name's sake. Do Thou ever guard us
from evil, and overrule all contrary things
to our good, and enable us to serve
Thee faithfully, for Thy mercy's sake,
who livest and reignest with the Father
and the Holy Ghost, one God, world
without end. Amen.
Our Father.

The figure of the woman clothed with the
sun, and with the moon under her feet, and
having on her head the crown of twelve
stars, as beheld by St. John in his vision at
Patmos, and recorded in the i2th chapter

*St. Johni. 10, ii.

122 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

of the Apocalypse, stands for the Church of
God in every age, bringing forth Christ to
the world. It has nothing whatever to do
with the Blessed Mother in her present ex-
altation. It may be applied to her as the
type of the Church collectively, and of every
individual soul among the company of the
faithful. She brings forth Christ personally ;
the Church is ever bringing forth Christ in
the spirit. In every new planting of the
Church in the mission-field, in every new
religious movement, in every establishment
of a guild or religious society, in every fresh
individual resolve to live for Christ more
faithfully — there is the bringing forth of
Christ in some fresh manifestation of His
grace and truth.

And over against that figure ever stands
the great red dragon, the foe of Christ, ready
to destroy the new birth of the Divine
life.

So was it with Israel in Egypt ; so was it
with Christ born after the flesh; " Herod
sought the young Child's life to destroy it." *
* St. Matt. ii. 13.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 123

So was it with the infant Church ; the Roman
empire rose up to blot it out; and when
Satan failed by persecution to destroy the
seed, he sought to strangle it by heresy or
to seduce the Church by worldliness. Ever
over against the woman bringing forth the
Man-Child stands the great red dragon, seek-
ing to destroy His life. So it is in our own
experience. We make some special resolu-
tion and we find some fresh obstacle. Some
new start is made in mission-work; then
fresh difficulties and hindrances arise. All
this is quite natural ; we are not to be in the
least surprised or discouraged.

I. Consider, first, the necessary antagonism
that exists between the Church and the world,
the woman and the dragon. It is through
the bruising of the heel o£ the woman's Seed
that the serpent's head is to be crushed;
it is only through struggle that Redemption
is to be gained; it is only through suffering
that victory can be effected.

And, as with the Church, so with the
individual. Don't think that any opposi-

124 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

tipn you may meet with in your life or in
your work is any necessary sign of God's
displeasure; rather it may be the reverse.
Satan sees some germ of the Divine Life
which, if it be allowed to grow, will work
ruin to his kingdom, and he starts up to
oppose it. Or the world scoffs and ridi-
cules it. Yes ; we are always to expect op-
position; it is a sign of the Divine Life
asserting itself in a fallen world. So, when
He came into the world, when "the Word
was made flesh," and "He came unto His
own, and His own received Him not,"
Herod, as the representative of this world's
power, sees his own throne tottering and
seeks to destroy the new-born King. So it
was with our Blessed Lord after His bap-
tism. Mark the sequence of mysteries
in our Lord's life. After His Baptism,
when the heavens were opened above Him,
the Spirit was seen descending and resting
upon Him, and the voice of the Eternal
Father was heard proclaiming, ' * This is My
beloved Son;" then, immediately, " He is
led into the wilderness to be tempted of the

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 125

devil." * Before He enters on His ministry,
before He works a single miracle, preaches a
single sermon, or wins a single disciple, He
will constitute Himself "a merciful and
faithful High Priest;" "for, in that He
Himself hath suffered, being tempted, He
is able to succour them that are tempted." f
He earns His right to teach and lead. Mark
the Temptation before the Ministry, and the
Temptation following right upon the Bap-
tism.

There stands the Evil One. " Let us see
what it means. Art Thou the Son of God ?
What means the proclamation ? Has the
Spirit descended on Him ? It shall be
wrested from Him ! "

Ah! we are often discouraged because
after receiving some grace some fiery trial
assaults us. It is just the time to make
the grace our own; as we act upon the
grace given, the grace is appropriated and
assimilated by us.

It was so, again, after the institution of
the other great sacrament. Jesus leads
* St. Matt. iii. 4. f Heb. ii. 17, 18.

126 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

His disciples forth from the upper cham-
ber of the Eucharist to share in His Pas-
sion, to the 'Gethsemane of spiritual wrest-
ling, the Gabbatha of contradiction, the
Golgotha of actual suffering and death. Ah !
if we would worthily show forth His death
in holy mysteries, we must in our lives be
conformed to His example.

So here Mary, who is brought so near to
Him, begins already to share His cup of
sorrows; the sword begins to pierce her
heart because she is the mother of Him who
is "the Man of Sorrows, and acquainted
with grief." * Think of Mary's sorrow when
the decree goes forth from Herod to de-
stroy all the children of Bethlehem, in the
hope that among them may be her own
Child. That Child, as Simeon says, is set
"for the fall of many and for the rising of
others in Israel, and for a sign to be
spoken against, "f Think of her sorrow,
not only for herself; she must share His
sorrow; but that, be sure, is not the first
thought in her heart. She sorrows for her

* Isaiah liii. 3. * St. Luke ii. 34.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 127

Child — that His interests should be jeop-
ardized; she sorrows for all the mothers of
Bethlehem; she sorrows for Herod, too;
hating the sin, pitying the sinner. Ah!
"many and great are the troubles of the
righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out
of all."*

Think then first of the necessary antag-
onism between the Church and the world,
between Christ and Satan. The Child is
born, and the enemy seeks to destroy its
life. Be prepared for opposition; don't be
surprised at difficulties in your life or in your
work.

II. Consider the example of Detachment ;
for that is the lesson we learn from the Flight
into Egypt. Think what was involved in it.
Three months had passed since the birth in
Bethlehem; the Magi had come from their
distant homes; the Holy Family are now,
comparatively, comfortably lodged at Bethle-
hem; the pressure for room caused by the
taxing has passed away ; they are no longer

* Ps. xxxiv. 19.

128 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

in the stable, the Magi found them in their
house.* People, too, have become friendly,
attracted by the unearthly sweetness of the
Holy Family; their attention also had been
aroused by the message of the shepherds,
and by the coming of the Eastern travellers.
Mary is now able to go to the Temple when
she pleases; she is in comparative proximity
to the Temple while at Bethlehem. And
Mary at Bethlehem is in the home of her
ancestors; she is of the line of David, his
heiress.

It has been supposed by some that the
very stable in which the Saviour was born
belonged to the old homestead of David and
Jesse; that the little town had grown up
around it, and that then it was used as the
caravansary of the place.

Mary is at home in Bethlehem, in a place
full of sacred associations. And now all this
is to be sacrificed. There comes the message
to arise at once, and fly into Egypt — into
Egypt, where, indeed, there is a considerable
colony of Jews, and where they would be free

*St. Matt. ii. II.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 129

from Herod's jurisdiction and interference;
but it is a heathen country, and associated in
the minds of every patriotic Hebrew with the
idea of bondage and of Israel's degrada-
tion.

Carry the Child there — to such a desolation?
Oh, how strange are God's ways! " His ways
are not our ways, nor His thoughts our
thoughts."* He gives such strange, para-
doxical commands, so contrary to what we
should have thought! And they go. Ah!
think of it.

Are we called tol eave some Bethlehem ?
Are we despatched to some spiritual Egypt ?
Are we called to give up some cherished at-
traction, some bosom companion, some
helpful guide, and sent to some spiritual
Egypt to carry our experiences to those who
are less privileged than ourselves, to impart
to them what God has given to us ? Or are
we laid by through sickness, and compelled
to give up some cherished work, not for our-
selves, but for the good of others ? Are we
disqualified by sickness, or by invalidism,

* Isaiah lv. 8.

130 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

which is worse ? It is like being sent into
Egypt. Do we go like Mary, promptly,
carrying the child with us ? Or are we in-
wardly rebellious, repining, discontented,
reluctant ?

They go "with haste;" they pack up and
start at once. Egypt will not be the land of
desolation if God bids them go thither, and
if they carry the Child with them. Palestine
would be no " Holy Land," nor Bethlehem
"the house of bread," unless they were
there at God's bidding. ' ' No, Lord, let
Egypt be my dwelling, at Thy command;
not the Holy Land with all its privileges,
nor Bethlehem, at my own self-will. Any-
where with Thee, O Lord; nowhere without
Thee ! " " Lord, I will follow Thee whither-
soever Thou goest." * "In all places where
I record My Name, I will come unto thee
and I will bless thee;" f but at no altar which
thou hast devised and erected for thyself, for
thine own will- worship ! Are we ready to
leave our spiritual privileges and blessings
when God in one way or another deprives us

* St. Luke ix. 27. f Ex. xx. 24.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 131

of them ? How often we have our perverted
ideas of what means of grace and sacraments
are to do for us ! We have an idea that all
are to support us and to hedge us round;
that, while we are weak and tottering,
Almighty God will put a strong staff in our
hand on which we may lean ! Almighty
God will do nothing of the kind. He gives
us His sacraments to be our food and
strength, so that we may come to live by His
indwelling might.

When from time to time, from one cause
or another, we are debarred from the means
of grace, then is the time to show what we
have gained from them in the past; and that
we have not merely enjoyed them, but prof-
ited by them.

Let us think, then, what a lesson of de-
tachment Blessed Mary gives us, not from
mere natural human associations, but from
whatever God sees fit to withdraw from us.

III. Consider the example of Obedience and
its reward that we have in the Flight of the
Holy Family into Egypt.

132 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

We may note five points concerning it :

(i.) The security which comes from obedi-
ence.

Thus the young Child's life is saved.
The Angel comes with the warning message,
"Herod will seek the young Child's life to
destroy it. Arise, flee into Egypt. "J And
Joseph obeys ; he takes the young Child
and His mother, and the life of Jesus is pre-
served.

Ah ! how often an angel comes to us with
a warning word — "they seek the young
child's life!" — that young child of grace in
the good resolution you made at the begin-
ning of Advent, or at your Christmas Com-
munion, or at the opening of the New Year,
or in the resolve with which you leave your
Retreat. ' ' They seek the young child's life ! "
— the world, the flesh, the devil, your own
besetting sin, your special temptation is lying
in wait ; avoid the occasion of evil !

How often have we neglected that warn-
ing voice which came to us in some inspira-
tion— the word of a parent, the warning

J St. Matt. ii. 13.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 133

of a friend, or the counsel of a spiritual
guide! We were allowing ourselves some
liberty; the voice said, " Beware! " We dis-
regarded it, and the young child received
some injury; maybe, it was killed outright.

Or, on the other hand, the warning came
and we listened. " Beware of that evil,
avoid that reading, that companionship,
that amusement!" It was not in itself
wrong, but for us it was seen to be danger-
ous. We looked back afterwards, and we
saw what a danger we had escaped. And
that other, who would not heed, fell into the
danger and received a deadly injury. Learn
the lesson of prompt obedience, to save the
life of the child of grace.

(ii.) We have the example of unconditional
obedience. " Go, flee into Egypt, and be
thou there until I bring thee word again."
Not for two months, or six, or twelve; not
for two years or four. No time is specified,
no term is given; but, " until I bring thee
word again."

We must not make conditions with God;
and yet we are always trying to do so. "I

134 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

can submit to this, but that I cannot stand ! "
' ' I can take this sickness, but that disap-
pointment I cannot bear!" "I can be put
aside for this winter, but not beyond! "

Ah ! there must be no making terms with
God; the obedience must be unconditional.
" Go. Be ready to do, to be, to bear what I
order now, and then thou wilt be ready to
do, to be, to bear whatever I have in store
for thee in the future." Remember St.
Jeanne Chantal's paraphrase of the Lord's
Prayer : * * Without ' if, ' without ' but, ' with-
out exception, without limit, Thy will, O
Lord, be done." Yes; ''flee into Egypt, and
be thou there until I bring thee word again."

(iii.) Then, again, consider how all this
trouble came through the wickedness and
violence of King Herod. It was that which
rendered the Flight necessary. It was his
envy, his fear, lest his own usurped sway
should come to an end.

How often do we resent trials that come
to us through the mistakes or the faults of
others. We say, "If it came directly from
the hand of God I could accept it." So we

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 135

say, and so we think. " But it does not; it
comes from the stupidity and perverseness
of this or that person ! " What did the
Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ come
from ? Was it arranged by Heaven ? It was
all the work of hell — base, false, cruel.
" This is your hour and the power of dark-
ness,"* said our Lord; and yet, almost in
the same breath, "The cup which My
Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it ? " f
These two words of our Lord at His appre-
hension in the Garden represent the two
aspects of all sorrow and all suffering. Re-
gard it as the cup which the Lord gives,
although it may be tendered by an evil hand.
God allows many things that He does not
inspire, and He will overrule for good all the
evil that He allows, if only we will take it
aright. "The cup which my Father gives,"
appeals to all the loving, trustful submission
that is in me. ' * This is your hour and the
power of darkness," appeals to all that is
noble, strong, brave and generous in me. I
will not be beaten ; I will stand my ground !
* St. Luke xxii. 53. f St. John xviii. 1 1.

136 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

Think of this in any sickness, or misunder-
standing, or opposition, any sorrow or suffer-
ing that may befall you; think of its two-
fold aspect, and how it is to be met in this
twofold spirit.

(iv.) Think of the example of obedience on
the part of those set to rule. It is the par-
ents who obey, those who are in charge of
the Holy Child. They have to show them-
selves obedient to the Heavenly Father
whom they represent. None are fitted to
rule unless they have first learned to obey.
Oh, my friends, what a special lesson for any
of us who are charged with the care of
others ! We have no right to rule unless we
can submit ourselves as those under author-
ity. Children are to obey their parents, pas-
tors, teachers, ''in the Lord;" but these
must be in the strict line of representation ;
we must be obeying Him if we are requiring
obedience from others in His Name; if we
are ourselves lacking in obededience, we for-
feit our right to rule.

See what a wonderful example of obedience
is shown in the life and conduct of St. Joseph,

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 137

who was set to be the head of the Holy
Family, the guardian of the Blessed Mother,
the foster-father of the Holy Child. On
every occasion on which St. Joseph is men-
tioned in the Gospels, he is acting under
obedience.

(i.) Before our Lord's birth Joseph was in
sad perplexity as to the purity and faithful-
ness of his espoused wife. It was his duty,
according to the Levitical law framed to
guard the sanctity of family life, to put her
away. He was about to act in obedience to
the Levitical law, and, at the same time, to
obey the law of kindness in his own heart
which urged him to do it privately.*

(2.) The Angel comes and gives the ex-
planation which sweeps away all his fears:
"That which is conceived in her is of the
Holy Ghost." f He bids him arise and take
unto him his wife, and give her shelter and
protection. Without hesitation he acts on
the Angel's word. In blind faith he accepts
the explanation. The world may scoff at
his simplicity, but "to the pure all things

*St. Matt. i. 19. fSt. Matt. i. 20.

138 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

are pure;"* and the loving and the gener-
ous can believe in the faithfulness of others.
He takes her and shelters her.

(3.) They go to Bethlehem at the com-
mand of Caesar, for the t axing, f He obeys
not only the Angel, he obeys God through
whatever channel the command comes.
The heathen emperor is the civil ruler, and
in his sphere he represents Almighty God.

(4.) The child is circumcised on the
eighth day according to the Law; and the
Saving Name foretold is given by Joseph in
faith,! as the Angel had bidden.

(5.) On the fortieth day the mother is puri-
fied and the Child presented and redeemed. §

(6.) And now at the bidding of the Angel
he takes the young Child and His mother
and flees into Egypt, and waits there until
the Angel comes to tell them that ' ' they are
dead which sought the young Child's life."

(7.) Then in obedience " he returns into the
land of Israel."

(8.) As he returns, when he hears that

* Titus i. 15. f St. Luke ii. 1-4.

J St. Matt. i. 21. I St. Luke ii. 21-25.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 139

Archelaus, the cruel son of his cruel father,
reigns in Judea, and he is afraid to go thither,
in obedience to the Angel's word in a dream,
he turns aside to Nazareth.*

(9.) And afterwards, year by year, he is
seen attending the Temple feast at Jerusa-
lem, until at last the Child is initiated in the
Law.f And then his work is done, and he
passes away; the Holy Child needs no longer
his guardianship. " Guided by His counsel,"
He will, at last, " receive him into glory. "J
And after a little while that Son whom he
had guarded and tended, shall come and
claim him in Paradise.

Thus on every occasion Joseph is seen
acting in obedience to the command of God,
however expressed, whether directly by in-
spiration, or by the word of an Angel, or
through the ecclesiastical or the civil law.
As one who is set to govern, he is fitted to
rule by unhesitating, unconditional obedi-
ence.

(v.) One last word. When we obey God's

* St. Luke ii. 22, 23. f St. Luke ii. 41, 42.

I Ps. Ixxiii. 23.

140 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

^vord, "all things work together for good." *
All seemed so unlikely, so contrary, but all is
taken into account by Almighty God. All is
foreseen and arranged for. By St. Joseph's
obedience not only is the Child's life spared,
but the old prophecy sees its fulfilment,
" Out of Egypt have I called My Son.f He
turns aside to Nazareth at the Angel's bid-
ding, because it is unsafe to dwell where
Archelaus reigns, and another saying of the
prophet is fulfilled, "He shall be called a
Nazarene."J

Ah! the things that seem so untoward,
that are due to people's sins and Satan's
wrath, God will make them all "work to-
gether for good;" all sorrows, trials and
temptations, yes, and even our falls, if re-
pented of. "All things work together for
good to them that love God." " His wisdom
reacheth from one end to another; mightily
and sweetly doth it order all things." §

Let us repeat Psalm IxiiL

*Rom. viii. 28. fSt. Matt. ii. 15; Hosea xi. I.

\ St. Matt. ii. 23. \ Wisdom viii. i.

EIGHTH MEDITATION.

THE LOSING AND FINDING OF THE HOLY
CHILD IN THE TEMPLE.

LET us meditate upon Mary losing and find-
ing the Holy Child in the Temple.

Consider her remonstrance, as she finds
Him after the three days' search. " Son,
why has Thou thus dealt with us ? Behold,
Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrow-
ing."*

O Lord Jesus Christ, deal with us, we pray
Thee, in Thy love and wisdom, as Thou seest
to be best for us. Train us by Thy disci-
pline ; enable us to grow in Thy knowledge
and Thy love; remove from us all that is
displeasing in Thy sight; kindle in us true
devotion, and an earnest desire to serve
Thee. And grant that when the trial and
discipline of life is over, we may behold Thee

* St. Luke ii. 48.
141

142 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

in the Heavenly Temple, and in Thy pres-
ence may find the fulness of joy. To whom,
with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be all
honour and glory, world without end.
Amen.

Our Father.

We find Mary again in the Temple some
twelve years after we beheld her there at her
Purification. She then presented her infant
Child to the Lord. Now He accompanies
her, a Boy of twelve years old ; and we have
to consider a mingled mystery of joy and
sorrow. She has a joy almost greater than
any she has yet experienced, and a sorrow
certainly not less. She had fled from Bethle-
hem with Him to preserve His life ; now for
a while she has to mourn the loss of Him.
During twelve years she had been at the
Temple feast; hitherto she had left Him at
home, now He accompanies her. He has
come of age to be initiated into the Temple
rites, to take His part in its ceremonies; He
has become a Child of the Law. Think what
joy is hers as she takes her Boy in that cara-

THE HOLY CHILD IN THE TEMPLE. 143

van of pilgrims from Bethlehem to Jeru-
salem !

Some of you, perhaps, have experienced a
like joy when you have taken your child, or
a pupil, or a godchild, to Confirmation or to
First Communion. Think of Mary and her
Child, and what joy and pride swelled her
heart ! Think of the new meaning that came
to her in that psalm, when she said, ' ' I was
glad when they said unto me, we will go into
the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand
in thy gates, O Jerusalem ! " * Think how
she knelt by His side in the Temple courts;
how they had looked forward to that day,
talked about it, and about the Temple rites.
And now they see them all enacted. Think
of the questions He asks, and of her explana-
tions. Think of His voice, as it rings out
clear among the voices of the Levites, as they
chant David's Psalms. How they seem to
gain new meaning as He utters them ! As
when a master-musician takes the instru-
ment into his hands, and we never knew
what sounds it could give forth before; so

*Ps. cxxii. i.

144 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

the Psalter, on the lips of the Son of Man,
rises to a fulness of tone, gains a richness of
harmony never known before in the Temple
worship.

Think of Mary's joy at His devotion,
at His wisdom, at the questions He asked
when being catechized, as it were, by the
scribes and lawyers in the Temple court.
We are not to think of our Lord as sitting
down to teach the doctors — such an idea
would be altogether preposterous ! The doc-
tors sat round in a semi-circle, the pupils sat
at their feet, hearing them and asking them
questions. But the questions He asked sug-
gested meanings such as they had never
known; He was giving far more information
than He received; they were amazed, and
His mother was astonished too; there was
an outshining of wisdom in her Boy such as
she had not seen before. So think of her joy.

But remember that we can pray along
with our Lord Jesus Christ in a better and
more intimate way than was even granted to
His Blessed Mother in the Temple. We are
incorporated into His mystical Body. His

THE HOLY CHILD IN THE TEMPLE. 145

Spirit has communicated to us "the mind of
Christ." Not until after Pentecost could she
pray "in His Name." We pray not along-
side of Him, but with Him, as an indwelling
Inspirer. Ah! think of what our prayer
should be in the sanctuary, praying along
with Christ, as members of Christ, and with
the aid of His Spirit. Think what it means
— to pray in Christ's Name. It does not
mean just to tack on Christ's Name at the
end of a prayer, as a sort of charm; as
though the weak petition that bubbles out of
our heart could gain acceptance if so offered
in His Name ! No ; to pray in Christ's Name
means to pray with Christ's authority; it
means to have Christ praying in us ; we
praying the prayers He prays — praying under
the inspiration of our Head. Our prayer is
not simply to pass through His Hands, to
find an echo in His sacred Heart. No, no;
it must be originated in His Heart, and then
echoed by us. What does He desire for me ?
I must beg from Him the Spirit of grace and
of supplication, that I, who know not what to
pray for, nor how to ask as I ought, may be

146 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

helped by the Spirit of Christ, that I may
think His thoughts, have His desires, and
pray along with Him.* Think of this in your
private prayers. Think of the reverence and
attention that should characterize prayers
which are offered along with Christ's inter-
cession. Think of yourself as kneeling on
one of the lower steps of the Altar Throne
on which He pleads on our behalf, gathering
up all the prayers that are prayed by His
faithful servants on earth and in Paradise.
Think of the spirituality that should mark
the prayers of Christ's members, who pray
along with Him.

Again, think of prayer at the Holy
Eucharist. He joined in prayer and Mary
joined with Him, assisting at the Temple
sacrifice. We are privileged to join in offer-
ing the Sacrifice which is the antitype of
all the Jewish sacrifices. The Eucharist is
the earthly counterpart of the Heavenly
pleading. We contend that the Holy Euchar-
ist is the great central act of devotion, that
it is the only divinely appointed service of

* St. John xvi. 23, 24 ; Rom. yiii. 26.

THE HOLY CHILD IN THE TEMPLE. 147

the Christian Church; that nothing must be
allowed to take its place, whatever may be
the most convenient arrangement of services.
But we so often make a mistake here.
The Holy Eucharist is not our great act of
worship, because in it we plead and offer
Christ as our substitute. He is not our
substitute, He is our great Leader and
Representative. He did not die that we
might not die; He did not suffer that we
might lead a self-indulgent, luxurious life!
We must arm ourselves with His mind.* He
does for us that which, without Him, we
could never have attempted, but in which
we must share if we would be partakers of
the benefits of His life and death. It is
not His death as our substitute that we.
plead. We gather round about Him, and
He leads our devotions. As we show forth
His " obedience unto death, "f in His own
appointed way; as we plead

The only offering perfect in Thine eyes,
The one, true, pure, immortal sacrifice,

we must " offer and present ourselves,
* i St. Pet. iv. i, f Phil. ii. 8.

148 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

our souls and bodies" along with Him,
as our reasonable service to the Father.
It is His obedience that God delights in,
not His death. God delights not in
death; not in mine, or yours, or His dear
Son's; but in obedience. It is the will-
ingness to suffer in God's cause unto death,
the " obedience unto death," with which
God is well pleased. That is the offering we
show forth in glad thanksgiving and exulta-
tion, and at the same time proclaim as the
law of life for ourselves to follow, in the
Eucharistic mystery.

Ah! think what our Eucharists involve.
There the Head gathers the members about
Him; He offers them along with Himself,
and the Church offers herself along with
Him, the great Head, the Representative of
the Christian Society. As we gather round
our Leader and assist in the presentation of
Him who is both Priest and Victim, He
makes us, likewise, ' ' kings and priests unto
God and His Father."*

But if we go forth from our Eucharists to
* Rev. i. 6.

THE HOLY CHILD IN THE TEMPLE: 149

live idle, self-indulgent, self-pleasing lives,
think, what are our Eucharists but our con-
demnation? This is what we plead; this is
what God delights in — Christ's obedience unto
death, and we rule the straight, clear line
of His obedience, only to make more plain
the crookedness of our own want of corre-
spondence with His will !

Think, then, of Mary joining with Him in
that worship of the Temple ; and let us think
of ourselves joining with Him in better
fashion in the great Sacrament of the
Eucharist.

Think again, how Mary in that Temple
worship gained a new realization of her
Son's character and personal dignity.

And think how we, year after year, festi-
val after festival, Retreat after Retreat,
are to grow in the knowledge and love of
God, and of the things of God ; keeping the
old ways, not just in the old fashion, but div-
ing down to a deeper significance, rising
higher through fresh inspiration ; not recur-
ring to them as mere historical events, but
as sources of real spiritual power. My Bible

150 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

reading, my spiritual exercises, my Confes-
sions, my Communions, my Retreats — all are
to help me grow in the knowledge and love
of God. Am I seeking to gain a newer and
truer conception of the things of God, in
nature, in providence, in grace ? Are my
heart and my understanding kindled with a
new knowledge and love of God ? Am I
seeking to attain a childlike spirit, while I
put away childish things ? There is all the
difference in the world between being child-
like and childish! We are to "put away
childish things,"* childish conceptions of
prayer, of God, of the sacraments, of our
Christian life; while we retain a childlike
spirit of trust and love. All this is diffi-
cult. There must be humility, patience,
trustfulness and love, if we are to grow in
grace. But we are, remember, to offer to
God the homage of our mental faculties; we
are not to let them grow in secular knowl-
edge, while they remain stagnant and undevel-
oped as regards the worthiest of all acquire-
ments— the knowledge of spiritual things.
*i Cor. xiii. n.

THE HOLY CHILD IN THE TEMPLE. 151

Think, then, of Mary accompanying her
Son, joining in His prayer, assisting with
Him in offering the Temple sacrifice, gain-
ing fresh conception of His character, His
dignity, and of all spiritual things along with
Him.

II. Then think of the sudden change — the
sorrowful side of the mystery of that visit to
the Temple. Yes ; she experiences now a
sorrow greater than that of the reproach of
Nazareth, or the anxiety of Bethlehem, or
the flight into Egypt. All that was borne
with Him, now there is the loss of Him !

Ah ! be prepared for changes of experi-
ence in the spiritual life. The Magnificat,
which was the last recorded utterance of
Blessed Mary, is followed by this loving, sor-
rowful expostulation; the major key sinks
down to its plaintive minor : ' ' Son, why hast
Thou thus dealt with us ?"

So it is in our life ! There is a time of
joy, of festival joy, of spiritual joy in
Retreat, when the things of God are so plain
and clear that we almost seem to see them,

152 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

to lay hold of them ; it seems almost absurd
not to live under their control; the super-
natural seems the common sense view.

Then a cloud comes and settles down over
us, and we wonder whether it could all have
been true. That state of ecstasy — was it
mere emotion, the effect of the imagination,
or of some fascinating companionship ?

Yes, there are all sorts of vicissitudes in
spiritual as in natural circumstances, and
many causes contribute to them. We must
be prepared for them just as much as we are
for changes of climate. Our Magnificat will
often sink down to the plaintive expostula-
tion with the Lord— "Why hast Thou thus
dealt with us ? "

It is worth noticing the sequence of say-
ings of the Blessed Mother. There are just
seven in the Gospels, which mark out, as it
were, the experiences of the spiritual
life.

(i.) There is the word of prudence. " How
shall this be ? " * asked, as we have seen, not
in doubt, but as testing the spirit, rightly

*St. Luke 1.34.

THE HOLY CHILD IN THE TEMPLE. 153

seeking to be assured that the message came
from God.

(ii.) Then, so assured, there comes the
answer of simple self -surrender. t c Behold
the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me ac-
cording to thy word." *

(iii.) Then, mark, she went to salute St.
Elizabeth with the word of loving kindness
and of sympathy, f Her great dignity did
not make her stand on her rights, or wait for
Elizabeth to visit her. Her great joy made
her full of loving-kindness. " He that loveth
God loveth his brother also." J

(iv.) Then comes her central saying, in
which she pours out her whole soul to God in
the Magnificat. §

(v.) Then follows this word — the word of
loving remonstrance, telling of trials in the
spiritual life. " Why hast Thou thus dealt
with us ? " || Then follow the two other say-
ings, at the marriage at Cana of Galilee,
which we shall consider later.

* St. Luke i. 38. f St. Luke i. 40.

\ i St. John iv. 21. \ St. Luke i. 46-56.
|| St. Luke ii. 48.

154 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

(vi.) One, the word of loving intercession,
bringing the needs of her friends before our
Lord, seeing their difficulty and embarrass-
ment. Her own sorrows had made her sym-
pathetic; she is quick and eager to relieve
others. " They have no wine ! " *

(vii.) The other, as she retires from the
scene as her Son enters on His public work,
her word of counsel — ''Whatsoever He saith
unto you, do it." f

Look for something corresponding to this
in your own life.

Now the festival is over; the company
are returning to Nazareth; the caravan
starts; and through some mistake the
Child has not been informed ; they start with-
out Him. In the great company they sup-
pose Him to be with friends and are not
alarmed. But the night comes, they bivouac ;
and now they find Him not. They search
for Him among their friends, and He is not
there. Think of the agony of that night and
how hastily they retrace their steps to the
Holy City the next morning. All that day

* St. John ii. 3. f St. John ii. 5.

THE HOLY CHILD IN THE TEMPLE. 155

they search for Him; another night passes
and they find Him not; not until the
third day do they discover Him in the Tern-
pie.

O think of the sorrow of that three days'
search! And is there not something of re-
proof in our Lord's answer to His mother's
words: "How is it that ye sought Me?
Wist ye not that I must be about My
Father's business?" Or, rather — "in my
Father's house" — for that, without doubt,
is the correct translation. "How is it that
ye sought Me? What did you go to the
lodgings for? Why did you seek Me in the
streets or in friends' houses? Why did you
not come to the Temple? You left Me here,
and here I am ! "

Ah ! and so it is continually in our own ex-
perience. It is not the Lord who has with-
drawn from us, but we from Him. We can-
not always have spiritual fervour. Maybe
our natural powers have given out — the strain
was too great. Or maybe our spiritual
powers have given out; some temptation
came and we gave way to it, we grew lax in

156 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

self-discipline, careless in our prayers; we
were not faithful to the inspirations of con-
science; we have withdrawn from Him.
And then we ask our Lord, " Why hast Thou
thus dealt with us ? " And He answers,
"Here I am; I was waiting to hear your
prayer, to feed you with My word, to give
you Myself in the sacrament. ' Return unto
Me, and I will return unto you.'* It is you
who have changed; it is you who went away
from My presence; it is you who deserted
My holy Temple. Or, you sought to distract
yourself in earthly pleasures and companion-
ship, and you have failed ! Ah ! come back
to Me, and find in Me the joy and strength of
your spiritual life !"

We are not to be surprised at such experi-
ences, nor to be discouraged by them. God
tries His chosen servants. He would lead
Mary and Joseph to value their treasure more
highly, since they have been without Him
those three days. Oh, how careful would they
be afterwards, not to let Him out of their
sight, that there should be no more mis-

* Mai. iii. 7.

THE HOLY CHILD IN THE TEMPLE. 157

understanding, but all quite plain and
clear.

And when we have no sensible consolation,
when all our spiritual exercises seem dry and
dull, all mere forms, and we hardly know
how to drag ourselves along in our spiritual
life, He would have us cling to Him more
closely, since we know how barren and dry a
thing life is without Him. "Like as the
hart desireth the water-brooks, so longeth my
soul after Thee, O God."*

So think of Mary's joy and sorrow as the
type and pattern of your spiritual experi-
ence.

III. Was there not some sense of failure
on Joseph's part, of neglected responsibility ?
Ought he to have lost sight of the Holy
Child ? Ought he to have started without
ascertaining that He was in the company, to
have trusted to the chance of finding Him ?
Think of the remorse of St. Joseph. Mary
might have chidden him : * ' It was your part
to keep watch over the Boy; you are His
* Ps. xlii. i.

158 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

appointed guardian !" And how he must have
chidden himself for his thoughtlessness and
carelessness.

Think of that as a sort of typical warning
for any of us who are put in charge of the
spiritual life of others, when through our
neglect or carelessness, or inconsistency or
bad example, we lose hold of them — the child
committed to the parent's care, the soul com-
mitted to the priest's guidance and pastoral
ministrations, the pupil to the teacher, the
god-child to the sponsor — and we have for-
gotten them, or been careless, self-pleasing,
neglectful. ' * Where is the flock I committed
to thee? "

Think of Joseph's remorse, and of our own
self -accusation ; and learn the lesson of real
carefulness, of earnest fidelity in the dis-
charge of any such trust. Pray that you
may never, by carelessness or bad example,
put a stumbling-block in the way of a soul
for whom Christ died.

Think of our Lord's words in that great
High-Priestly prayer to His Father in which
He reviews His life and ministry. " I have

THE HOLY CHILD IN THE TEMPLE. 159

glorified Thee on the earth."* How? By
success ? It was, to all appearances, a ghast-
ly failure ! No ; but because ' ' I have fin-
ished the work which Thou gavest me to
do." Never mind success or failure; out-
ward success may be real spiritual failure;
and outward failure, if we have been true
and faithful, is not failure in the sight of
God. " I have manifested Thy Name unto
the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the
world; Thine they were and Thou gavest
them Me"— those few— that little handful!
" Of them have I lost none."

And those people He has given Me; those
few placed under my influence — can I say
" of them whom Thou gavest me have I lost
none, but the son of perdition ? "f There was
that limit to the success of Jesus Christ. He
could not, He would not force Judas. He
will woo, and attract, and allure, but not
compel. And there is that limit to our in-
fluence; we cannot force any against their
will.

But let us live so as to be able to echo our

* St. John xvii. 4. f St. John xvii. 12.

160 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

Lord's words, " Of them whom Thou gavest
Me have I lost none" — by carelessness, by
want of energy, or by bad example.

And let us learn the same lesson as regards
our own life. We have failed. It has been
our own fault; we see it. Our life has
grown dull, our faith is less bright, our love
less active, and our hope has become clouded
over. We have withdrawn from Him; we
have not been careful to obey His inspira-
tions. " I looked for my beloved, but my
beloved had withdrawn himself and was
gone ... I sought him but I could not find
him; I called, but he gave me no answer."*
I am punished for my own faithlessness.
Then, "I found Him. . . I held Him and
would not let Him go."f I will be more
careful, more faithful in my spiritual exer-
cises, in my self-examination, in avoiding
occasions of evil; more true in all my du-
ties. He has chastised me; I have learned
" how evil and bitter a thing it is to forsake
the Lord." J " But He has not dealt with me
after my sins, nor rewarded me according to

* Cant. v. 6. f Cant. iii. 4. J Jer. ii. 19.

THE HOLY CHILD IN THE TEMPLE. 161

my iniquities."* "Heaviness may endure
for a night, but joy cometh in the morn-
ing, "f "Then shall ye call upon Me, . . .
and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall
seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall
search for Me with all your heart. "J

Let us repeat Psalm xxx.

* Ps. ciii. 10. f Ps. xxx. 5. { Jer. xxix. 12, 13.

NINTH MEDITATION.

THE VIRGIN MOTHER AT THE MARRIAGE
FEAST IN CANA.

Let us meditate on the example of Blessed
Mary at the Marriage Feast of Cana. Listen
to her word of intercession, as she brings the
needs of the company before our Lord, and
says, "they have no wine."* And hear her
word of counsel to the servants, "Whatso-
ever He saith unto you, do it."f

O Almighty God, who hast ordained and
constituted the services of men and of angels
in a wonderful order, and hast incorporated
us one with another in the mystical body of
Thy dear Son; grant us, we beseech Thee,
ever the spirit of loving fellowship, that we
may rejoice with them that do rejoice and
weep with them that weep, that so, bearing

* St. John ii. 3. f St. John ii. 5.

162

THE MARRIAGE FEAST IN CANA. 163

one another's burdens here, we may be fitted
to have our share in the company of Thy
saints above, through the same Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.
Our Father.

Eighteen more years have passed since the
last events recorded in the life of the Blessed
Virgin Mary; and meanwhile, so far as the
Gospel record is concerned, she has been left
in silence, pondering over the things she has
seen and heard.*

Now again we have a mystery of mingled
joy and sorrow; as if here on earth we were
to expect no unclouded happiness, as if our
brightest joys were to be dashed with streaks
of pain. The Child has developed into the
Boy, the Boy has become the Man, and the
Man has entered on His public work. We
turn from the narrative of St. Luke, which
tells of the Infancy of our Lord (gathered
probably from the Blessed Mother herself),
to the story of St. John.

And, you will remember, the marriage
*St. Lukeii. 19, 51.

1 64 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

feast at Cana was the occasion of St. John's
introduction to St. Mary, who from the Cross
was made his sacred charge.

Think what the intercourse between that
Mother and her Son must have been during
those years at Nazareth. How He had
grown up in her presence, and she had ad-
vanced in the spiritual life under His eye!
We see them now together at the marriage
feast.

I. Consider the example which the Blessed
Mother gives us of sympathy with both the joys
and the sorrows of others. She was fitted
for this by her own experience. Her own
deeper experience did not crowd out the
thought of others; she had learned to feel
for others because she had felt so much her-
self. Think of Mary's presence at the mar-
riage feast as the expression of her loving
interest in other's joys. She can enter into
their joys, although she has put aside all
ordinary wedding joys for herself. Perhaps
the bride was some friend — her sister, or her
cousin, Mary the wife of Cleophas? It mat-

THE MARRIAGE FEAST IN CAN A. 165

ters not ; she is invited, she goes. She does
not say, "All this is too earthly, too low
for me!" She accepts the invitation and
goes to the wedding-feast. She takes an
interest in it, she adds to their innocent joy,
and cares for their distress when the supply
of wine becomes exhausted.

Ah! think of this; as we become more
spiritual, let us take care not to become awk-
ward, odd or unnatural. We do such harm
to religion in this way! If, in our family,
or in society, or in our work, or with our
pupils, others cannot look to us for sympathy,
then they are repelled from the religion we
profess. Surely, the religion of Jesus Christ
should make us more truly men and women !
We may have to renounce something that is
less good for something that is better, but
don't let us try to impose this sacrifice upon
others. Don't say, "You must give up
going to the theatre because I find it better
not to go." Don't be strait-laced with your
pupils or your scholars; be large-hearted.
Don't be above sympathizing with their
interests. You may have more refinement,

166 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

culture, and higher interests than they have ;
but these are things that interest them.
Keep them from harm, but don't frown on
what is harmless, or else they will say, ' ' We
will throw off all religion ! "

There is a grand saying which I have
never been able to trace beyond a sermon of
Dr. Liddon's : "The real Christian should
have a heart of steel towards self, a heart of
fire towards God, and a heart si flesh towards
his neighbor." All these should go together.
Sometimes we forget this and reverse their
order, especially in the earlier stages of
spiritual development. We forget the heart
of flesh, and because we are strict with our-
selves, we become hard with others. Or
maybe there is the heart of steel towards our
neighbor, and no heart of fire towards God,
and a heart of very tender flesh towards our-
selves and our own indulgences. No, no ; if
we are really strict with ourselves, we shall
have the heart of flesh for others; just be-
cause we know how difficult it is to keep
straight ourselves, we shall be ready to con-
done with others; and we shall be able to

THE MARRIAGE FEAST IN CAN A. 167

sympathize with others because we have
learnt by experience our own frailties.

Do not with your brothers or with friends,
be hard and repellent ; let your religion make
you more considerate, more loving and
attractive, more able to think of and enter
into the pleasures and interests of others.

Think of Mary, the mother of the Eternal
Son, at the marriage feast, bringing joy and
brightness, shedding an atmosphere of sweet-
ness and purity all around her.

Think of her sympathy with the distress of
those who have bidden her to the Feast.
She recognizes their need. The scanty
household store, which was all that their
humble circumstances could afford, has been
exhausted, possibly by the unexpected ar-
rival of Jesus and His disciples. With a true
woman's instinct she sees their embarrass-
ment and enters into their distress. She
does not say, "Let them feel their earthly
need; it will make them appreciate the
heavenly better!" She goes to her Son,
who also sees the need, and, what is more,
relieves it.

168 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

Do not smile at what people call " mere
philanthropy." Try to raise it to something
better. Do not hold in contempt what is
done for others, because it is not always
done in the best way. It may, perhaps, help
them to embrace religion and fit them to
receive spiritual truths. How can you ex-
pect the starving and naked to rise up to the
desire for heavenly things? "That is not
first which is spiritual," says St. Paul, "but
that which is natural."* Our Lord Him-
self when teaching by parables begins with
things earthly — with what is close at hand ;
and then He says that all these things have
a meaning deeper and higher. He takes the
earthly and says, " Now learn from that —
from the needs of your body — the need that
your souls have of refreshing ! " You learn
from your duty to your earthly parent your
duty to your Heavenly Father. What is the
child's first idea of God, but of some one
higher, wiser and better than the wisest,
greatest, best person it knows — its parent!
Think of that. A child will gain its first
* i Cor. xv. 46.

THE MARRIAGE FEAST IN CAN A. 169

idea of God from its earthly parent, who
either demands its obedience as a tyrant —
"defy me if you dare!" — or who lovingly
trains it and supplies its needs in a better
way than it can ask, and who guards it and
leads it on to better things.

So think of Mary, seeing the temporal
need of her friends, and setting herself to
relieve their anxieties.

Are we stirred by the sense of others'
need ? Think of that word of hers— " They
have no wine ! " Oh, how it should echo from
our heart and lips in prayer ! There is not
only the absolute poverty of life, but the
joylessness of so many; not only of those
whom we ordinarily speak of as " the miser-
able classes," but the joylessness of so many
in the world — of the rich and the worldly.
They have money, and they don't know how
to spend it ; they have possessions and plea-
sures, and they don't know how to use them ;
they have no real happiness in their lives —
" they have no wine! " Oh, how we should
try to win them by love, to bring their needs
before our Lord, to try in every way we

170 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

can, by our influence, our example, our
words of exhortation, to bring joy into
others' lives. And there are those who are
less fortunate than ourselves. How we
should use all the gifts that have been be-
stowed upon us for the common good.
Your educational advantages, your refine-
ment, your culture, your knowledge of liter-
ature, your musical talents, your art — what
are they for ? Simply to make money by ?
God forbid! To distinguish you from
others ? No gift was ever bestowed in order
that the one to whom it was given might
be separated from others by that gift ! No ;
it is to be a link to bind us together. "I
can do something that my brother cannot,
therefore he has a claim on me, and I will
stand by him." We are made to be neces-
sary to one another; and for all the gifts we
have, as trustees for the common good, we
are responsible not only to Him who has
given them, but to our companions and our
fellow-men also for whom He has given
them.
Think. Are we using the advantages

THE MARRIAGE FEAST IN CANA. 171

that God has given us in trust, for our
brethren — our scholars ?

Mary interceded. Ah! she does so now,
for those who have no joy, no brightness in
their lives; for those who don't know Him.
And we must intercede along with her. If
we join in her song of praise in the Magnifi-
cat, we must unite in her intercessions also,
and bring the needs of others before our
Lord; and as we bring them, do all we can
to supply them. "Give us this day our
daily bread," not, "Give me mine!" The
Lord's Prayer is not said in the singular,
but in the plural. " Meum" and " tuum"
are not Christian words; "Pater noster" is
the Christian prayer and the law of Christian
life and conduct. What we value for our-
selves we must seek to spread to others;
and what we shrink from ourselves — lower-
ing surroundings, a tainted atmosphere —
what we shrink to think of those nearest and
dearest to us being exposed to — let us do all
we can to remove from others. " Lead us
not into temptation. Deliver us from evil."
Do what you can to sweeten the mental and

172 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

moral atmosphere that surrounds you, my
sisters. All can bring others' needs before
our Blessed Lord; and then, like Mary,
leave Him to supply them as He sees
best.

Then let us go on to Mary's word of ex-
hortation. She not only prays, she speaks to
the servants her one recorded word of exhor-
tation— " Whatsoever He saith unto you, do
it." See what should be the word of a
teacher. Not, as we saw before, trying to
impress yourself on others, but to render
them plastic to His inspirations, in order that
Christ may impress Himself upon them by
His Word, by His Spirit, in their conscience.
" Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it."
Whenever we have the opportunity, let us
give the word of exhortation and advice.
Do not let us be overcome by shyness or
false shame, but speak the word in season.
Like the Blessed Mother, point to Him;
only, like Blessed Mary let the word of coun-
sel be the echo of your own conduct.
" Whatsoever He saith unto you" — even
though it be to fill the pots with water when

THE MARRIAGE FEAST IN CANA. 173

it is wine that is wanted — "do it." She
could say that because she had done it her-
self. Her word of exhortation is the echo of
her own word of self-surrender in response
to the Angelic message, giving herself up in
simple faith, ' ' Behold the handmaid of the
Lord; be it unto me according to thy
word." * " How shall I be carried through ?
How shall this word be accomplished ?
How shall I be protected ?" — She did not
know, nor did she very much care. God
had spoken; He would be true to His word.
And "all things spoken by the Angel con-
cerning the Virgin Mary were accom-
plished." Out of her own experience she
could give the word of counsel, " Whatsoever
He saith unto you, do it"

Ah ! if only our words could be seen to be
the outcome of our own experience, then
they would have real force. But if we are
only seeing very plainly what others ought
to do, while they see very plainly that we are
not doing what we ought to do, then we had
better not speak at all. Mary is calling
*St. Luke 1.38.

174 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

others to that saintly life in which she seeks
to abide.

So consider the example of Mary's sympa-
thy at the marriage feast, seeing their need,
and setting herself to relieve it by her inter-
cession and her counsel.

II. Consider Mary's sorrow and discipline
at Cana. The scene is one of changed rela-
tionships. It is the first time that Mother
and Son have met since He left her at Naza-
reth to enter upon His ministerial life. Oh !
think of what her sorrow was as He told
her He must go; that those days of loving
intercourse were over, that He is going to
leave Nazareth, to leave her; that the Father's
business required it.

Then ' followed the Baptism, the solemn
inauguration to His Ministry by the fore-
runner. Then came the forty days' fast,
and His fierce struggle with the Evil One.
Then the return from the wilderness, when
John had pointed Him out to his disciples as
the new Teacher: — " Behold the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sins of the

THE MARRIAGE FEAST IN CANA. 175

world ! " * and handed over to Him some of
his own pupils whom he had been training
for the Christ — Peter and Andrew, James and
John, Philip and Nathaniel — these had been
called to be the Lord's disciples.

And now the Mother and Son meet again.
Jesus goes with those disciples to Cana. She
sees a change in Him. His bodily frame is
wasted with His forty days' fast; His face
is lined with the marks of His terrific struggle
with the Evil One ; she has a foreboding of
what is to follow. They are never again to
be together as they were before. He has
new interests now ; His disciples are His first
thought; they are His intimate companions;
they have taken her place !

Ah ! think of the sacrifices we are called to
make as our friends go from us, or as we are
called to leave them. I sometimes think that
those who are left behind make quite as
great a sacrifice as those who go; as the
priest, the missionary, the religious, or any
who are called to live a life of separation;
and, if so, if they share in the sacrifice,

* St. John i. 29.

176 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

then, be sure, they share in the blessing too.
When that friend or that pupil is called to
something beyond you — to something to
which you are not called, ah ! then think of
the sacrifice that Jesus made, and that Mary
made when she sent forth her Son.

Then, think of the check to her natural
feelings. She sees Him with the first-fruits
of His disciples, and she rejoices that He has
such enthusiastic friends; the mother's heart
was stirred, of course, — for she was a true
woman. They tell her about His baptism,
of which John had told them ; of the Spirit
descending like a dove and resting upon
Him ; and of the Father's voice proclaiming,
" This is My beloved Son." * They tell her,
too, of the Baptist's words, " Behold the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of
the world," — how he had been preparing the
way for the Messianic King, and had pointed
Jesus out as the Expected One. Her heart
is on fire ! Do not think me disrespectful —
she has a natural ambition (St. Chrysostom
says so); she would have her Son to be a

* St. Matt. iii.

THE MARRIAGE FEAST IN CANA. 177

King, and she would share His throne!
And now she would have Him work a mira-
cle. This gives the key to His answer.
There is nothing disrespectful, nothing
rough, in the reply of Jesus: " Woman," or
as we might say, " Lady " [the word is con-
stantly so rendered in the Greek plays]
" what have I to do with thee ? " But there
is an insistance upon a changed relationship —
' * What is there in common between you and
Me in this matter ? In my private life I was
subject to you, as a son to his mother; now

I have entered upon My public ministry; I
am about My Father's business; and that
must be done, not in accordance with any
partial love, or dictates of natural affection."
He severs Himself from her jurisdiction by
this word. And how lovingly she takes it !
She turns to the servants and refers all to
Him. She points to Him, not to herself:

II Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it! "
Ah! and how often has our Lord dealt

thus with us. He sends us some check; —
our heart is set on the accomplishment
of some plan, some scheme which prom-

178 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

ises success; not for ourselves only, but
for others — and God sends us a check.
We cannot, as we look back upon it, deny
that there was a good deal of self-love mixed
up in it; it was our plan, and we were going
to have a share in it; it was going to be a
credit to us ! And our Lord makes that plan
fail; some one else carries it out. Ah! we
must be purged from all self-love. So long
as God's will is done and souls are helped,
what matter whether the work be done by
us or by others, in our fashion or in an-
other; whether we gain credit and success,
or discredit and disappointment ? No mat-
ter, so long as the work is done. They have
the wine of gladness, and it matters not
whether we hold the bottle, or the servants;
or whether the work be done in our lifetime,
or by others whom He will raise up. We
must rise above all petty and personal con-
siderations, and we must expect our Lord to
send checks in our life and in our work.

III. Consider our Lord's example at the
Marriage Feast of Cana, in His dealings

THE MARRIAGE FEAST IN CANA. 179

with His Blessed Mother ; His perfect De-
tachment and perfect Impartiality.

(i.) His Detachment. He will not antici-
pate the hour which the Father has fixed:
"Mine hour is not yet come."* He will
not be moved by any mere partial love.
"Who is My Mother, and who are My breth-
ren ? " f He will not respond to any merely
natural claim. So must we make all natural
claims subordinate to the heavenly; yet we
must love all very, very tenderly. Do not
think that love is lessened because it is con-
trolled. No, no ; it is strengthened, because
all that makes it weak and vacillating is
purged away. Strong love is pure. Love
Him above all, and all in Him. "Whom
have I in heaven but Thee ? and there is none
upon earth that I desire in comparison of
Thee."! All others, however tenderly I
may love them, are as nothing in comparison
of Thee ! So in all matters of life learn to
put aside preference, while you stand fast by
principle. We must distinguish our duty
from our pleasure. It is very easy to call
* St. John ii. 4. f St. Matt. xii. 48-50. % Ps. Ixxiii. 24.

i8o THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

preference principle ; but as we are ready to
sacrifice our preferences, we can stand the
more firmly by principle; and others will
then learn to respect the principle to which
we feel bound to adhere.

(ii.) Our Lord's Impartiality. He spares
not His Mother, because she is so dear to
Him. No; heroic souls are dealt with in
heroic fashion. Because she is so dear to
Him He cannot bear that there should be in
her the slightest flaw or imperfection; she
must be wholly conformed to the Divine
will.

So if God disciplines us, it is because He
loves us. "Whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom
He receiveth." * It is because He loves our
best and highest interests. It is because He
is so faithful in His friendship that He must
warn us against the things that mar our
highest perfection. Just so did our Lord
deal with His disciples; that was why He was
so severe with the chosen three whom He
had admitted into the inner circle of His
* Heb. xii. 6.

THE MARRIAGE FEAST IN CANA. 181

friendship, and allowed to be with Him on
certain special occasions ; for instance, at the
raising to life again of Jairus' daughter,
at the Transfiguration, and at the Agony
in the Garden. They were specially hon-
oured, specially loved, and specially disci-
plined. How stern crur Lord was with St.
Peter! After his great confession, "Thou
art the Christ, the Son of the Living God ! "
when he had drawn forth from the Lord an
expression of joy — " Blessed art thou, Simon
Barjona! — My work has not been in vain;
thou hast learnt the truth I have been trying
to teach My disciples, and hast won thy place,
to be first among My Apostles and a founda-
tion-stone of My Church!" — a little while
after, when Jesus foretells His Passion and
St. Peter would dissuade Him from it, our
Lord turns to him with these words, ' ' Get
thee behind Me, Satan, thou art an offence
unto Me; for thou savourest not the things
that be of God, but those that be of men." *
He does not say, " Peter has said so many
good things, I must pass this by ! " Not so.

*St. Matt. xvi. 13-24,

182 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

Because Peter had risen to such a height, he
cannot be allowed to sink down to a low
level. Because he had risen to the appre-
hension of spiritual things, he cannot be
allowed to speak the things of earth.

And so was it with the fiery spirit of
James and John ; it must be regulated. They
would call down fire from heaven on the
Samaritans who would not receive their
Master;* He sternly rebukes them, "Ye
know not what manner of spirit ye are of! "
"None of your Old Testament spirit of
vengeance here ! I want not the spirit of
Elijah! Rise up to My spirit. The Son
of Man is come not to destroy men's lives,
but to save them. See the manner of My
victory, conquering through love, winning
through meekness, through self-sacrifice."
Yes, His disciples must be disciplined and
purged. His special friends must be treated
with special discipline.

Let us expect our Lord to deal thus with
us, as a faithful friend, and let us submit
ourselves to His loving severity, His prudent

* St. Luke ix. 54.

THE MARRIAGE FEAST IN CANA. 183

training, even though He use the surgeon's
knife. "Try me, O God, and seek the
ground of my heart; prove me and examine
my thoughts."*

And we will try to imitate His faithful-
ness, His impartiality in dealing with friends.
We are not true to our friends if we are
afraid of giving them pain. There are times
when we ought to risk giving pain, and not
to shrink from it. We must be ready to give
pain if we love with real love ; we must love
so truly as to be willing even to be suspected
at the moment of not loving. We must be
faithful in our friendships, not letting our-
selves be dragged down by our companions
from the high standard to which God is call-
ing us. In some instances we have seen, on
our knees, quite plainly how we ought to
behave under trying circumstances; for in-
stance, in some misunderstanding, or when
things are going wrong; in church matters
perhaps, or in our own family; we see it all
and realize how we ought to act, regarding it
as an opportunity of showing meekness and

*Ps. cxxxix. 23.

1 84 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

patience, of overcoming evil with good. And
then some one suggests a different line, and
we allow the suggestion to stir up all our
bad feelings — " You can't let that pass! You
can't allow yourself to be treated like that! —
what will come next ? " And so we retal-
iate, instead of being true to our conviction.
Instead of insisting, as Jesus did, that His
friend should rise up to His standard, we
sink down to the lower level suggested by a
friend, and so fail in loyalty to our God, and
also to our friend ! This was our opportunity
for bearing witness to what God had shown
to us.

So consider our Lord's example of faith-
fulness, and impartiality, and detachment.

Let us learn with Blessed Mary to sympa-
thize with others' sorrows and with others
joys, and to set ourselves with real active
sympathy and earnest zeal to supply their
needs. Let us seek like her to subject our-
selves to our Lord's loving training and
discipline; and let us strive to be true and
faithful to all because we love Him, and

THE MARRIAGE FEAST IN CANA. 185

because we love them truly and really, in
and for God.

Let us repeat Psalm cxli.

TENTH MEDITATION.

THE VIRGIN MOTHER AT THE CROSS.

LET us meditate on the Blessed Mother
standing by the Cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ.

Behold her as beheld by Jesus; and listen
to His word as He commends His Mother
to the loving care of St. John, the beloved
disciple, and says, "Woman, behold thy
son!" and to St. John, " Behold thy
mother!"*

O' Lord Jesus Christ, King of Saints, Who
dost bind us in a blessed fellowship one with
another as Thy disciples and as members of
Thy mystical Body, grant us, we pray Thee,
that loving Thee with a pure love, we may
love all others whom Thou dost love, in
Thee and for Thee. Grant us to use all the
gifts Thou hast bestowed upon us, in nature

* St. John xix. 26, 27.

186

AT THE CROSS. 187

and in grace, for the good of the brethren,
that so we may be numbered with Thy
Saints, both now and evermore. Amen.
Our Father.

And now the Blessed Mother's cup of sor-
row is full. We gaze on the climax of her
woe, but only to remember that that depth
of woe shall leadTto a higher, more glorious
joy than any she had yet experienced. From
the Joyful Mysteries we pass on to the Sor-
rowful ; and the Sorrowful Mysteries are, in
their turn, to give place to the Glorious and
Triumphant Mysteries.

But as she now stands at the foot of the
Cross, all else is swallowed up in the contem-
plation of that fearful sight. We sing of her
as standing by the Cross of her Son, but it is
much too solemn and awful a thought for mere
sentiment. We behold an illustration of the
law of God's dealing with all His Saints, with
all whom He calls near to Himself; and those
who have a special share in His Son's exal-
tation must have a peculiar share in His suf-
fering. It is the warning of the Old Testa-

1 88 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

ment ; t ' My son, if thou come to serve the
Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation."*
And the warning of the Old Testament is
taken up and transfigured in the Apostolic
hymn of the New Testament, "if we suffer
with Him we shall reign with Him."f It is
the experience of His Saints. As James and
John came and asked for high places in His
Kingdom, He puts to them the test, " Are ye
able to drink of the cup that I shall drink
of?"t As St. Bernard says, "What a
shame " — and we might add, what an impossi-
bility— "to be the soft and luxurious mem-
ber of a Head that was crowned with
thorns ! " So does Christ bring to the Cross
of suffering her whom He loved with a
peculiar love.

By the Cross, her station keeping,
Stands the Mother mournful weeping,

Where He hangs, the dying Lord.
For her soul, of joy bereaved,
Bowed with anguish, deeply grieved,

Feels the sharp and piercing sword.

Ah ! think of her sorrow ! " For a mother to
be present at the death of a child, an only
* Eccles. u. i. f 2 Tim. ii/12. J St. Matt. xx. 22.

AT THE CROSS. 189

son, and that mother a widow, is an affecting
thought at any time, a grief too deep and
mysterious for any perhaps quite to under-
stand but those who have felt it. But for
that Mother of that Son to stand by and see
Him condemned to death as a malefactor,
crucified between robbers, reviled and in-
sulted, to hear Him cry, ' My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken Me ? ' * and to be
unable to minister to Him, this surely is a
secret and mystery of anguish as much above
what ordinary mothers can understand as
their grief is more than can be comprehended
by any but mothers." f Hagar sat a good
way off and cried, " Let me not see the child
die ! " I But Mary stands by the Cross and
sees the death of her Son. She does not
shriek, or faint, or fall down; she stands
there in a majesty of sorrow, " perplexed, but
not in despair; cast down, but not de-
stroyed." § She shares her Son's lot.

I. Consider her standing by the Cross as we

* St. Matt, xxvii. 46. f Isaac Williams,

J Gen. xxi. 16. \ 2 Cor. iv. 8, 9.

190 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

have seen her all through her life, as the
representative of the Church, the type and
figure of the faithful. Ah ! is she my pat-
tern, standing by the Cross ? The Cross is
set up in my life, in my family life — do I
bravely stand by it ? In some bereavement,
or in a painful misunderstanding, do I stand,
like the Blessed Mother, overwhelmed,
maybe, with grief and shame, yet still look-
ing up to God, not in bitterness, but believ-
ing ? Or is the Cross in our work ? Some
failure comes, or disappointment, or pecu-
niary anxiety, do we stand by that Cross ? Or
it is in our own personal, individual life;
temptations assail us, a dark cloud settles
down on our soul, spiritual difficulties arise —
do we give up then ? Or are we found faith-
ful ? Do we stand by the Master ? Or, the
Passion is renewed in the Church's ex-
perience; there are anomalies, difficulties,
heresies. But troubles do not call for fret-
fulness and impatience; the Church is to
be tried, like her Head; she is to share her
Lord's humiliation. She is to be like her
Master, "unknown" to earth, "yet well-

AT THE CROSS. 191

known" to Heaven;* "crucified through
weakness, yet living by the power of God." f
Am I faithful to principle, yet humble and
forbearing, not bitter or complaining ? Am
I standing, like the Blessed Mother, patient
by the cross, not seeking to be rid of it ? Am
I standing by her in sympathy, seeing Him
suffering in the poor, the sinful and the
ignorant — ministering to Him in them ?
" Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least
of these My brethren, ye did it unto Me ! " \
Am I standing there in readiness to bear His
lot, ready to share His scorn and shame ?
And am I standing there in worship, behold-
ing the glory of the Cross, the moral beauty
of the sacrifice, not in mere admiration or
idle sentiment, but rendering the true homage
of imitation ?

Is not Mary learning a deeper lesson than
before ? Surely, as she stands by the Cross,
she is gaining, as all through her life, a fur-
ther revelation of her Son's character, His
dignity, His work, His kingdom. The Old
Testament Scriptures — the Levitical sacri-

* 2 Cor. vi. 9. f 2 Cor. xiii. 4. J St. Matt. xxv. 40.

192 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

fices, the prophetic types of the Passion —
now she has the key to many things that had
puzzled her. Now she learns that the suffer-
ing Messiah is to be the triumphant Messiah ;
that He is to reign in meekness, to conquer
through suffering. The Apostles had not
learned before the true characteristics of His
kingdom; they had dreamed of an earthly
kingdom, and Mary had shared their
thoughts; it would have been impossible
for her to be altogether free from them.
Now she learns the truth, she learns in what
His true dignity consists; she dies with Him
to every earthly hope, every mere natural
ambition. The Cross was to her, as to all
who were to be incorporated into the human-
ity of her Son, the key of heaven, the door-
way to a better life.

Think. Are we ready, like Mary, to stand
by the Cross, in worship, in readiness to learn
its mysteries, to set ourselves to follow in our
Lord's steps ?

II. Think of Mary by the Cross, recognized
by our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 ' Now there stood by the Cross of Jesus His

AT THE CROSS. 193

Mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the
wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.
When Jesus therefore saw His mother,
and the disciple standing by, whom He
loved, He saith unto His mother, Woman,
behold thy son ! Then saith He to the dis-
ciple, Behold thy mother! " *

He saw her from the Cross. Ah ! think of
what He saw as He looked around! He
beheld the soldiers — rough, brutal, ignorant —
with their wine, their dice and their spoils.
He beheld the chief priests mocking in their
malice, exulting that at last their plan had
succeeded, they had got rid of their rival.
He saw the penitent robber; He turned to
look at him, to accept his confession, and to
give him His word of promise. He looked
for St. Peter, but St. Peter was not there.
He had said he was ready to go with Him to
prison and to death, but he had denied Him,
and now we may suppose he was ashamed to
return and stand by Him. He saw that little
band of disciples, mostly women, of all
classes, under the guardianship and patron-
age of St. John. There was Magdalene, the

* St. John xix. 25-27.

i94 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

penitent ; Salome, the matron ; and the Virgin
Mother.

Ah! as the Cross is continually reared
throughout the ages He looks to see if those
whom He has called to be His disciples are
standing there. Does He see us standing, in
faithful love and courage, by His Cross ?

See Him faithful in the fulfilment of filial
duty to the very end. He had separated
Himself from His Mother at His Father's
call. But when, on entering upon His
Ministry at the Father's call, He subor-
dinated earthly ties to Divine obligations.
He did not cease to love; He did not oblit-
erate His earthly love; human love is only
made more pure, more strong, more en-
during by subordination to Divine love.
Therefore when there was no conflict of
claims, His last thought was for His Mother,
as He seeks to provide for her, and com-
mends her to the loving care of the disciple
whom He could trust.

A Son that never did amiss,
That never shamed His Mother's kiss,
Nor crossed her fondest prayer :

AT THE CROSS. 195

E'en from the tree He deigned to bow
For her His agonized brow,
Her, His sole earthly care.*

Who, O perfect filial heart,
E'er did Thee a true son's part,
Endearing, firm, serene ?

See in this the consecration of all natural
ties, the re-hallowing by the Cross of all
family affections and kinship. Have all your
natural relationships been re-hallowed by the
Cross of Jesus — re-hallowed at the beginning
of a New Year by the cradle of Mary's Child,
by Him who became a member, not merely
of the human race, but of a human family;
who became your Brother to enable you to
fulfil all the duties of your family and social
life, with love, with purity, with peace ?

III. Consider the creation of new relation-
ships around the Cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Mary and John, the mother and the
friend of Jesus, are given to one another in
a new way, to be something more to one an-
other than they had ever been before. John
is to play a son's part to the bereaved mother,

* Christian Year.

196 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

and the mother is to look to him for guid-
ance, protection and support, while she gives
to him comfort, sympathy and love. Think
of the new relationship, the kinship of grace
that was formed around the Cross of Jesus.
Think of Mary as the representative of
the Church, and John, whom Jesus loved,
as the type of the individual among the faith-
ful. Or of John, as the representative of the
priesthood, and Mary as the elect soul com-
mended to the care of the ministry. Or see
in them two chosen souls, loved by Jesus,
drawn nearer to one another as they are
drawn near to Him and to His Cross. See
here your relationship to the Church, to the
ministry, to your fellows. Learn to be all you
can to one another. Think of being given to
one another by Jesus from the Cross. O the
tender love, the respectful ministry we should
exercise one towards another ! Think of Mary
receiving John at the Cross, and of John re-
ceiving Mary. Think of that friend, that
pupil, that soul whom you can help, support
and cheer, as given you by Christ from the
Cross: "Take this child and nurse it for

AT THE CROSS. 197

Me," He says.* Ah, take all your interests,
all your duties, all your charges from the
Lord; care for all for Him, love all in Him,
and then give back, with purity of intention,
all to Him.

Think of this new alliance between Mary
and John, how it is to be reproduced contin-
ually in the family of the faithful. Learn
what we should be to one another, each to
each; Mary giving comfort, as woman can
to man, and John giving protection and sup-
port, as man to the Blessed Mother. Think
of the converse of those elect souls; think of
Mary, giving him cognizance of facts in the
early life of Jesus which she alone could
know; and of John giving her deeper in-
sight into the meaning of those facts — that
her Child was the very Word of God, of one
nature with the Father, " by whom all things
were made;" that it was He who was made
Flesh of her substance, "full of grace and
truth, "f

Think how we should supplement each
other's knowledge, be large-hearted, wel-
* Ex. ii. 9, f St. John i. 14.

198 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

coming different views of truth, so long as
they do not contradict one another — balan-
cing and supplementing one another. Re-
member that truth is infinite, and our minds
are very finite. Do not seek to make others
see only what you can see; then how very
little any would see ! Don't merely tolerate
— no one wants to be tolerated, it always
implies superiority on the part of the one
who tolerates ; but generously welcome
another's view, it will supplement your own
and make it richer, fuller. Learn large-
heartedness by the Cross of Jesus Christ.

IV. Pass on to consider now Marfs share
in the Glorious Mystery of the Resurrection.
She is not mentioned in the story of the Res-
urrection; and that is just the point. She is
not mentioned all through the story ! The
last we see of her is at the foot of the Cross,
when the Lord commends her to the care of
the beloved disciple ; then she vanishes
from our sight in the Gospel records.
Legend has been busy, and Art has stepped
in where it has no sanction. In art she is

AT THE CROSS. 199

represented as assisting at the entombment ;
and legend tells the touching story of the
Lord appearing first to His Blessed Mother
on Easter morning. But how much more
grand is the simple statement of the Evange-
list: "He appeared first to Mary Magda-
lene ! " * Blessed Mary needed no such assur-
ance of His Resurrection. She had stood by
His Cross, and she knew He would triumph.
She knew that that was not the end, that
God's promise could not end in failure, that
He would not leave His soul in Hades, nor
allow His body to see corruption;! that
somehow or other death would be over-
thrown and the victory won ; that His words
would be fulfilled, that He would "rise
again."! She had stood there at the Cross,
"steadfast in faith, joyful through hope,
rooted in charity. "§ So she is not at the
tomb. Nor is she there on Easter morning
with the women, to pay, as they thought,
the last act of homage to their dead Master,
and to embalm the corpse. What was that

* St. Mark xvi. 9. f Ps, xvi. 10.

\ St. Matt. xx. 19. I Baptismal Office.

200 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

to her? He is not going to lie in the grave;
she will stay at home till word is brought to
her that Jesus lives, that He has conquered
Death, that He has dispersed His foes!
Others may mourn their Master, but she
knows that her Son and Lord will triumph.
So she needs not a sensible appearance.

To whom did our Lord vouchsafe a special
appearance ? Not to the great saints, but to
the penitents ; not to John who stood at the
Cross, but to Peter who had denied Him;
not to the Virgin Mother, but to the Magda-
lene; to Thomas, who could not believe; to
the two disciples who were straying off dis-
couraged to Emmaus;. to the weak who
needed special strength; not to the whole,
but to the sick.

Ah ! don't expect all to be sweetness, com-
fort, sunshine, because you are seeking the
Lord; rather, the absence of sensible com-
fort may be a token of advancing strength.
The little child is carried in its mother's
arms, but as it grows it is put down that it
may learn to wTalk, and stand by its own effort.
We are not always to be carried, like chil-

AT THE CROSS. 201

dren, in the arms of grace ; we are to learn
to stand and to walk.

So think of our Lord's dealings with His
Blessed Mother in the days of the Resurrec-
tion, and that the absence of any sensible
appearance to her was a token of greater
spirituality, of stronger spiritual vision, on her
part.

And learn, likewise, the lesson of impar-
tiality from His dealings with His disciples
— how He shows Himself, not to those, if
we may say so, to whom it would have been
the greatest pleasure to appear; not to John,
His bosom friend, not to His Blessed
Mother, but to Peter who had denied Him ;
to the Magdalene who was weeping at the
tomb, and fearing lest the terrible cloud
which the presence of the Master had driven
away should take possession of her again.
She had felt safe in His presence — what was
to become of her now ? And so she weeps
bitter tears at His grave. He must go and
comfort her, and tell her that though gone
from sight, He would be evermore near to
guard and protect her. ' ' I am not come to

202 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

call the righteous, but sinners to repent-
ance." *

And He would have us act in the same
way, with the same purity of intention, con-
cerning our friends and those who have been
committed to our care. Not to do what we
should most like, to seek those whom it
would give us the greatest pleasure to be
with, but those who need us most, who most
require our care.

Think of that lesson of impartiality and
contrast it with our own practice. There is
this or that girl or child who takes in every-
thing that is said — you can almost see the
lesson taking root; she is so appreciative, it
is a delight to teach her ; you give her lots of
time, you write to her from all parts of the
world ! And there is that other, so dull, so
lacking in responsiveness, surrounded by such
unfortunate circumstances, in such danger —
she is so hard to get on with, so difficult to
get at, so encrusted with the hard shell of
reserve! This one needs all the greater
care ; the other is sure to get on ; this one re-

* St. Matt. ix. 13.

AT THE CROSS. 203

quires all your prayers, your thoughts, your
loving sympathy. Yes ; Jesus went to Mary
Magdalene, to Peter, and did not vouchsafe
a special appearance to the beloved disciple
or His Blessed Mother. Learn the lesson of
really acting in His Name, of taking your
charge from Him, loving it for Him, and
then offering it to Him.

i. So think of Mary standing by the Cross
in her sorrow, sharing her Son's shame and
suffering, as the pattern of the faithful soul.

ii. Think of her as seen by Jesus, and
spoken to by Him from the Cross ; and of the
hallowing of all natural relationships. Think
of the creation of new ties and bonds of
grace by His Cross as He gives Mary and
John to stand in a new relationship to one
another.

iii. Consider on the day of Resurrection,
the absence of Mary's name in the story —
not to her discredit, but rather to her honor,
because she can do without that special mani-
festation; she is not dependent upon sensi-
ble help; her faith is stronger, her vision
clearer.

204 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

iv. Think of our Lord's impartiality as
giving- us a law for the discharge of all duties
we seek to fulfil in His Name, and for His
sake.

Let us repeat Psalm Ivii.

CONCLUDING ADDRESS.

THE VIRGIN MOTHER WAITING FOR THE GIFT
OF THE HOLY GHOST.

WE have thought all through the Retreat
of the example of the Blessed Virgin Mother
as the type and figure of the Church collect-
ively and of each individual soul in the com-
pany of the faithful. We have dwelt on every
instance in which she comes before us in the
Gospel narrative, and on her complete sur-
render to the will of God. We have thought
of her predestination, of her genealogy, of
her training in her early years, of the light
thrown upon her previous history by
her words at the Annunciation; we have
thought of the Angel coming to her at
the Annunciation, of the accomplish-
ment of God's great purpose concerning
her. We have dwelt on the Visitation, and
on the mutual joy of the Blessed Virgin and

St. Elizabeth, and on the outburst of that joy
205

2o6 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

as she breaks forth into her glad Magnificat.
Then on the Birth of the Lord and the ac-
complishment of the Mystery that had been
foretold. Then there was the Presentation
in the Temple and the Purification of the
Mother. We passed on to consider the Sor-
rowful Mysteries : The flight into Egypt ; the
loss of the Child and her words and His on
the finding in the Temple; the mingled
mystery of joy and sorrow at the marriage at
Cana of Galilee. And then we thought of her
presence at the Cross and of the significance
of the absence of her name from the story of
the Resurrection.

There is just one other occasion, and one
only, on which her name is mentioned in the
New Testament. In Acts i. 14 we find her
waiting with the Apostles in the upper cham-
ber for the day of Pentecost. The faithful
eleven were gathered together in the upper
room where the Lord had celebrated the first
Eucharist, and had told them of the promised
Comforter. There they had gathered to-
gether on Easter Day, and there the news had
been brought to them, " The Lord is risen

THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 207

indeed ! " * There He had appeared to them
on the day of the Resurrection, and again
on Low Sunday. There, after His Ascension,
they are keeping their Retreat, and " con-
tinuing with one accord in prayer and sup-
plication with the women, and Mary the
Mother of Jesus, and with His brethren.'
They are waiting for the fulfilment of
the promise which they had heard of
Him.

The last time we see her she is on her
knees in prayer, the type of the Church and
of every faithful soul. She has done her
work; now she is on her knees in prayer,
looking for fuller gifts, not for herself alone,
but for others also. Thus we part with her,
not as a mediatrix — not prayed to — not
prayed through — but prayed with; there is
the company of the saints, and Mary in the
midst; all are brethren and sisters, praying
together in the Body of Christ. See her
waiting there, praying with them for further
gifts — for the Gift of the Holy Spirit, beyond
what even she has received before.

* St. Luke xxiv. 34.

208 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

I. Ah ! think how, in going out of Retreat,
you are to go in the spirit of prayer; your
last thoughts to be on your knees before God,
thanking Him for all He has said and done
for you, and looking for some further gifts.
Yes, in Retreat spiritual things seem so
clear and vivid, so real. We know that the
shock will be great on going out into the
world ; it is like going out of a hot house on
a cold raw morning ; we get a chill, and
spiritual cold may be quite as fatal as phys-
ical ; it may fly, not to the head, but to the
heart.

We have to cherish the spirit of our Re-
treat, and to cherish the retreat exercises all
through our ordinary life; in our home
anxieties, our social distractions, in all the
pressure of our ordinary work and occupa-
tions. We are to be, like Blessed Mary, on
our knees in prayer, thanking God for all He
has given us. " Mary kept all these things
and pondered them in her heart." *

II. Think of her as the true Woman — the
ideal both of the matron and the maid — the

*St. Luke ii. 19.

THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 209

Blessed Mother on her knees in prayer. The
apostles and disciples go forth to their
labours, but think of that blessed home where
she and John are together. Think how it
must have cheered the hearts of the others to
know that John was offering the Holy Eu-
charist, and Mary assisting at it, pleading for
them and for the success of their preaching.
Think of their coming back, one by one, and
being cheered by the loving care of the
Blessed Mother and the beloved disciple.
Think of the great apostle St. Paul with
all his wondrous powers, being introduced to
her. Think of what woman's work should
be! — not her mere active work, but that
other side of it, her influence. Praise God
for it. Try to support those who have not
the same opportunities for prayer that you
have; and let others be gladdened by your
intercessions. And let your work be
strengthened and tranquillized by the inner
devotional side of your life. Don't let work
crowd out prayer. Think of the blessings
brought down on the Church through the in-
tercessions of the Blessed Mother and St. John.

210 THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

III. Once more. Blessed Mary was wait-
ing with the Apostles and Disciples for a fur-
ther Gift of the Holy Ghost.

The Spirit at the Incarnation had over-
shadowed her; but that was an external
work. He had, indeed, taken of her sub-
stance to fashion the sacred flesh in which
the Eternal Son was to live and die and
reign ; but now she is looking for something
more. That holy manhood had been disci-
plined and sanctified by His life on earth,
" perfected through suffering," until in the
fullness of glory He should sit down at the
Father's right hand, thence to send His
Spirit on His Church. And now His Spirit
is to take of the things of Christ and to give
them to Mary ! Now, Mary is to be partaker
of Christ's substance. He had taken hers;
the Spirit had come upon her at the Annun-
ciation ; now, that which she had given is to
be given back to her, and that glorified
human Body is to interpenetrate her very
being; she is to be admitted to a closer
union with her Lord — far, far closer than
that which she had enjoyed during those

THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 211

nine months between the Annunciation and
His Birth. Now He dwells in her heart,
now she is to be made partaker of His
glorified humanity.

And so think that whatever gifts we have
received, there are further gifts in store.
Whatever light we have received, there is a
still clearer illumination awaiting us. On-
ward and upward ! ' * Forgetting those things
which are behind, and reaching forth into
those which are before " — pressing on, year
after year, retreat after retreat, through all
the varied experience and discipline of life —
that we may attain ' ' the mark of the prize
of our high calling of God in Christ Jesus," *
that we may lay hold of that for which we
are laid hold of by God;"

To Whom be glory for ever. Amen.

* Phil. iii. 13, 14,

APPENDIX.

THE VIRGIN BIRTH.

No APOLOGY can be needed for venturing to
discuss this subject. The question in these
days is forced upon us :

(I.) On what grounds do you believe the
miraculous conception of Christ ? (II.) Is
it possible — or reasonable ? (III.) What is
the moral value of the doctrine ? These are
the chief forms in which the question is pre-
sented to us. Let me offer a few suggestions
with regard to each of these points.

I. Stress is laid on the fact that the mirac-
ulous conception is told only by two out of
the four Evangelists; that the story takes
somewhat different forms in the two Gospels
in which it is found ; that St. Mark's Gospel,
which is supposed to represent the earliest

record of our Lord's life, is silent on the
213

214 APPENDIX.

subject ; that nothing is said about it in the
remaining books of the New Testament.

As Dr. Abbott puts it, "Of the nine
authors or thereabouts of the different books
of the New Testament, only two contain
any account, reference or allusion to the
miraculous conception." *

Such is the objection, or adverse argu-
ment, so far as Scriptural testimony is con-
cerned.

To this reply may be made :

(i.) That the point was not one on which
the Apostles in their early teaching would be
likely to dwell much. Their special func-
tion was to be witnesses of what they had
seen and heard. Accordingly they insist
chiefly and continually upon the actual truth
of the Resurrection of their Master — a mir-
acle, which, being themselves absolutely
assured of its truth, they urged as at once
(a) the sign and the vindication of Jesus'
Messianic claims, and (b) a manifestation of
the superhuman dignity of His Person.
"Born of the seed of David according to

* The Kernel and the Husk, p. 267.

APPENDIX. 215

the flesh, He was declared to be the Son of
God with power, according to the Spirit of
holiness, by the resurrection from the
dead."*

This preternatural fact, the fulfilment of
the "sign" which He had Himself prom-
ised,! a fact concerning the reality of which
they offered themselves as witnesses, J would
carry with it a readiness to accept a fact like
the Virgin-Birth concerning which the same
sort of evidence was not possible — a defect,
it may be remarked, which it shares with the
paternity of every child of Adam.

(2.) The silence of the Fourth Gospel on
the subject is certainly no difficulty. For,
on any theory of its date or authorship, \ it is
a supplementary record, and with few excep-
tions does not reiterate statements of his-
torical fact, which had already been related
by earlier Evangelists, and which were by

* Rom. i. 3, 4.

f St. John ii. 18 sq. ; St. Matt. xii. 38 sq.

J Acts i. 22 ; ii. 32, etc.

§ I beg that this expression may not be understood as
implying any doubt on the writer's part as to the Johannine
authorship of the Fourth Gospel.

216 APPENDIX.

the time this Gospel was written a part of
the commonly received belief of the Chris-
tian Society. Bearing this in mind, and the
general character of St. John's writings, it
would seem rash to say that there is "no
allusion " to the Virgin-Birth in the Fourth
Gospel. The description in the prologue of
the spiritual birth of the faithful, "which
were born not of blood, nor of the will of the
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God " —
in close connection with the statement that
"the Word was made flesh" — would seem
to suggest, very probably at any rate, a par-
allelism in the Apostle's mind between the
spiritual birth of those to whom the Only-
begotten Son gave the privilege of becoming
sons of God, and His own Birth in our
nature.*

In any case St. John's account of the In-
carnation in no way conflicts with the mirac-
ulous story related by St. Matthew and St.
Luke. Rather, as we may see later, his
teaching concerning the Person of the
Incarnate Logos is felt to be a natural

*St. John i. 12-14.

APPENDIX. 217

explanation of what might otherwise have
seemed in them to be fantastic.

So with regard to St. Mark. Had he
given any account of our Lord's early years,
there would be some ground for pitting him
(so to speak) against St. Matthew and St.
Luke. But his story begins with the Bap-
tism as the inauguration of Jesus for His
public ministry — quite naturally, if the tra-
dition be true (which there seems no reason
for doubting, while there is a good deal of
internal evidence in its favor) that Mark's
Gospel is practically the putting in writing
of Peter's oral teaching. St. Peter begins
his account of the Lord's life ("the begin-
ning of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ, the
Son of God ") at the point where he came in
contact with the Christ, handed on to him by
John the Baptist."*

(3.) But St. Matthew and St. Luke, it is
said, give different accounts of the miracu-
lous conception. We have " two Annuncia-
tions," one to Joseph and one to Mary.
What of that ? Does it not show — as, in a

* Comp. with St. Mark i., St. John i. 29 sq.

2i8 APPENDIX.

somewhat different way, the varying ac-
counts of the appearances of the Risen
Lord — the independence of the writers ?
And is it not quite conceivable that the two
Evangelists give the facts as they had gath-
ered them respectively from the only two
persons who could be evidence in the mat-
ter, Joseph and Mary ? St. Luke, who tells
us that he had been at pains to gather in-
formation— concerning, it may be noted,
* * those things which were already surely
believed " amongst the disciples — from those
who from the beginning were eye witnesses,
evidently bases his whole account of the
early events and mysteries of the Incarna-
tion on the testimony of St. Mary, who alone
could have furnished him with the facts he
relates — not with regard to the miraculous
conception alone, but throughout his first
two chapters. And with this agrees, as has
been commonly noted, the different style of
that portion of his narrative.* St. Matthew,

* St. Luke i. 5 — ii. 52, being more full of Hebraisms, as
would naturally be a literal rendering into Greek of an
Aramaic report.

APPENDIX. 219

on the other hand, tells all in his first two
chapters from the standpoint, as we might
say, of Joseph. *

Passing from Scriptural testimony it would
seem clear, both from the evidence of early
Creeds and from the writings of the Fathers,
that the doctrine in question was a part of
the original body of Christian teaching com-
municated by the Apostles to the Churches
they founded, before they committed their
oral teaching to writing. On what other
theory should we account for the agreement
of all early summaries of Christian belief
in declaring the Virgin Birth of the Incarnate
Son? A challenge may be safely made to
produce a single document of this sort which

* The question of St. Matthew's quotation of Isaiah's
prophecy (St. Matt. i. 22 ; Isa. vii. 14) is intentionally passed
over, as raising a side issue, which, however interesting, is
by no means necessary to the understanding or accepting of
the Evangelist's narrative. To suppose that Matthew built
his record on Isaiah's prophecy is wholly gratuitous.
His phrase " that it might be fulfilled " may mean no
more than that he saw in the event a fulfilment of the
ancient prophecy, by no means to the exclusion of a more
direct, historical reference. Comp. St. Matt. iv. 13 sq.
and Isa. ix. I, 2.

220 APPENDIX.

hints at any other mode of Birth.* Such
perfect agreement in substance amid varia-
tions of expression could only arise from a
common rvnog dida^q \ delivered to the
several Churches by their Apostolic founders.
Imitation in those days of comparatively
scant opportunity for intercourse would have
been impossible.

* It should in candour be said that the Nicene Creed in its
original form did not contain any statement on the mode of
our Lord's Birth, but simply affirmed that He " came down
and was incarnate." The Constantinopolitan Symbol added
the words, " Of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary." It
has been sometimes argued from this that the Virgin Birth
was not regarded as of the same importance in the East as
by the early Latin Church. But, not to mention other East-
ern authorities, we have in Irenseus (A.D. 180), who repre-
sents both East and West, a confession of faith quite explicit
on this point : " We believe . . . His Birth of a Virgin
and His Passion, and His Resurrection from the dead, and
the Ascension into the heavens in the flesh, of the beloved
Christ Jesus our Lord," etc. And of this Creed Irenoeus
says, " No otherwise have the Churches in Germany believed
and delivered, nor those in Spain, nor the Celts, nor those in
the East, nor in Egypt, nor in Libya, nor those established in
the central parts of the earth," etc. Iren. adv. Haer. 1. i. 10.
See Heurtley's Creeds of the Western Church, pp. 7-9, and
Maclear's Introduction to the Creeds, pp. 15, 99, 300.

fRom. vi. 17.

APPENDIX. 221

One or two quotations may be allowed
from the Epistles of St. Ignatius, which in a
sense combine the testimony of Fathers and
of Creeds, since they give the earliest traces
of the different Articles of the Creed as we
know them, and as they were evidently
already at that time familiar.

In his Letter to the Trallians * Ignatius bids
his disciples, " Be deaf when any man speak-
eth to you apart from Jesus Christ, who was
born of the race of David, who was the Son
of Mary, who was truly born and ate and
drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius
Pilate, was truly crucified and died in the
sight of those in Heaven and those on earth
and those under the earth, Who moreover
was truly raised from the dead."

So at the beginning of his Epistle to the
Smyrnaeans f Ignatius thanks God that those
whom he is addressing are " fully persuaded
as touching our Lord, that He is truly of the
race of David according to the flesh, but Son
of God by the Divine will and power, truly
born of a Virgin and baptized by John, truly

* Trail. 9 (Bp. Lightfoot's translation). f Smyrn. I.

222 APPENDIX.

nailed up in the flesh for our sakes under
Pontius Pilate," etc.

It is needless to multiply citations (as
might of course easily be done) to prove that
from the first and throughout Christendom
the Virgin Birth of our Lord was a part of
Christian belief. If it was not a genuine
part of Apostolic tradition, the " corrupt
following of the Apostles " must indeed have
begun early. And in any case the universal
acceptance of the doctrine would seem, if any
inspiration of the Christian Society by the
Spirit of Truth be believed in, to determine
the point. For, be it noted, this is not a
question of view but of fact. It is not like
views that may be taken of some generally
accepted fact, which may well vary in differ-
ent ages, as among minds of different degrees
of intelligence ; this is a question of fact, or
rather (in the mind of those who do not accept
the fact) of the translating of an idea (certainly
not a very clear one) into an imaginary fact.
Can we suppose that the whole Church, to
which the guidance of the Spirit of Truth
was promised, would have been allowed to

APPENDIX. 223

make such a mistake, and on such a point, a
mistake, too, that has eaten so deep into her
thought and life ? The case is not parallel
to any of the Old Testament stories with
which some might be inclined to compare it.
For (a) while none will contend that either
St. Matthew or St. Luke were writing alle-
gory, or supposed themselves to be aught but
chroniclers of fact, (b) the event related was
not of by-gone time but of comparatively
recent occurrence when they wrote.

II. To leave the ground of testimony, let
us consider the intrinsic reasonableness of the
doctrine. Where the doctrine is doubted we
may be fairly sure that the doubt springs
originally not from a sense of a want of suffi-
cient testimony, but from an uneasy feeling
in the presence of the miraculous and super-
natural, and a desire to minimize this element
in Christian teaching.

The popular objection to miracles as a
priori " impossible " is simply shallow. Have
we come to such a clear and exhaustive
understanding of the " Laws of Nature"
that we can attribute to them a rigid inflexi-

224 APPENDIX.

bility, — in which the idea of God is extin-
guished and man becomes a machine? In
speaking of physical science people are in the
habit of using law and cause as if they were
interchangeable. But is this so ? Do " the
Laws of Nature " mean more than that cer-
tain phenomena are observed always to follow
one another in regular sequence ? Do they
in any way supersede or render unnecessary
for causation the action of a Will? Physical
science knows nothing of the relation of
cause and effect, only of antecedent and con-
sequent. Directly we fall back on a Creative
Will behind the forces of Nature, the a priori
objection to what we call miracles has van-
ished. It stands to reason that such a power
can" manipulate His own forces, can vary
their direction and their results, can produce
immediately results that ordinarily are medi-
ately effected."*

What is there then against reason in the

* See Canon Malcolm MacColl's Ripon Lectures on the
Nicene Creed, Christianity in Relation to Science and
Morals. Part of his argument on this article I have done
little more than condense in the preceding sentences concern-
ing miracles.

APPENDIX. 225

variation, on a great occasion and for a great
moral purpose, of the ordinary law of the
transmission of life through two parents,
especially when, as will not be disputed, we
have in the present day, both in the vegetable
and animal kingdoms, instances of agamo-
genesisf* For the acceptance of Miracles
two things only are reasonably required, —
sufficient evidence and an adequate purpose.
I may quote in this connection the words of
the late Archbishop Thomson in his General
Introduction to the Gospels in the Bible [or
Speaker's] Commentary, in which he shows
the untenableness of many elaborate hypo-
theses concerning the origin of the Gospels,
of one of which — ''the original document"
theory — he says that it "has this advantage
as a theory that its facts are all derived from
the mind, and are therefore practically un-
limited; " the supply will always be equal to
the demand, f " The argument (Dr. Thom-
son says) that miracles are not so much im-

* See the articles on " Bees " and on " Biology " in the
Encyclopedia Britannica.
f Page xi.

226 APPENDIX.

possible as unlikely, that the testimony needs
to be very strong to overcome the antecedent
improbability of a miracle, has just this much
truth in it, that where everything betokens
that Nature is running her ordinary course,
the interposition of an isolated or aimless
miracle could not be looked for, or readily
believed. But when Jesus was born in Beth-
lehem, when Jesus died on Calvary, things
were not in their ordinary course. A won-
derful life, and the promise of a wonderful
work for man, were accompanied by wonders
wrought for men." *

This point leads to the consideration of the
reasonableness of the doctrine, as distinct
from its possibility.

If the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation
be accepted, the miraculous conception seems
to follow almost as a matter of course. The
expression, * ' the Catholic doctrine of the In-
carnation " is used, because in these days there
is a good deal of writing and speaking about
the Incarnation in which that word — like
others — is used in a sense which, if not un-

* Page Ix.

APPENDIX. 227

natural, is widely different from that which
historically has belonged to it. If by the In-
carnation is meant that on an already exist-
ing human person, Jesus, there descended in
extraordinary, say in unique, measure the
Divine influence, then, of course, the Virgin
Birth is (so far as we can see) a wholly un-
necessary and gratuitous addition of miracle.
But if with Christendom in general, with
certainly the great Creeds of Christendom,
we begin with a Divine Person, Who, having
existed from all eternity, in time was " mani-
fested in the flesh " — then one might almost
say that no other entrance into the world is
imaginable than that which the Creed states
to have been chosen, ' * Conceived by the
Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary."

Thus the single Personality of the Incar-
nate Word is guarded; a pure and sinless
Humanity is secured, exempt from trans-
mitted evil, free from all flaw; really one
with us in nature, being formed from the
substance of the Virgin Mother, while that
which was taken from her was wholly fash-
ioned by the Spirit of God. St. Paul's doc-

228 APPENDIX.

trine of " the Second Adam" (Who is
"from Heaven"), a fresh starting-point of
renewed humanity, would seem really to re-
quire the supernatural conception of Him
Who is so designated.*

The same may fairly be urged with re-
spect to the absolute Sinlessness of Christ —
"Holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate
from sinners," the "Lamb without blemish
and without spot " — which is constantly in-
sisted on by the Apostolic writers, f Thus
intimately and delicately are truths related
one to another. Of this a word more pres-
ently.

* I Cor. xv. 45 ; comp. the argument in Rom. v. 12 sq. and
2 Cor. v. 14, 15 (R. V.).

fHeb. vii. 26; I Pet. i. 19.

Concerning the Singh and Divine Personality of our
Lord, see Liddon's Bampton Lectures, pp. 262-7, and the
Christmas- day Sermon in the second volume of Newman's
Sermons. The following passage, at once eloquent and
exact, may be quoted from the Introduction to Dr. Bright' s
Addresses on The Seven Sayings from the Cross, pp. 10, II :

Who, then, is He, the Jesus of the Passion ? He is not a
preeminent saint, who responded with a signal readiness to
the Divine voice, who realized more worthily than other
men " the Divine idea " of human excellence, and to whom,
by a laxity of phrase not free from profaneness, men might

APPENDIX. 229

Here let me quote a paragraph from a ser-
mon of Dr. Liddon's on the subject (in his
Christmastide volume) * in which he deals
with a point often urged in this connection,
and (as was his wont) acutely claims as an
argument for the truth that which was ad-
duced as an objection.

Doubtless, here and there in the heathen world, there
were legends of sages or poets who were born of virgins ;
but these legends are related to the history of our Saviour's
Birth, as are false to true miracles. As the counterfeit
miracle implies the real miracle of which it is a counterfeit,
so the idea of virgin birth, here and there discoverable
in Paganism, points to a deep instinct of the human race,

thus ascribe a so-called " moral divinity." No, He is liter-
ally and essentially Divine ; He is " the only-begotten Son
of God," that is, the one Son by nature, and, because He is
thus Son, is " God from God." The " I " in Him, His very
Self, His Personality, is Divine, not human ; yet has He con-
descended, in His miraculous love, to take our humanity into
union with His Person, to assume as His own, from the first
moment of their existence, a human body and soul ; and this
without the slightest germ of sin, without any possibility of
deviation, in the movements of that soul, from the will of
the Eternal Father, but with all the innocent instincts and
affections of our nature, so that, while remaining unchange-
ably God, He could also be " a High Priest able to sympa-
thize with our infirmities," etc.

* Serm. vi. " Born of a Virgin," pp. 95, 96.

230 APPENDIX.

and to a high probability that the absolute religion would
satisfy it. Men felt, Pagans though they were, the oppres-
sion and degradation of their hereditary nature ; they longed
for some break in the tyrannical traditions of flesh and blood ;
they longed for the appearance of some being who should
still belong to them, yet in a manner so exceptional as to be
able to inaugurate a new era in humanity. Revelation,
surely, is not less trustworthy because it recognizes an in-
stinct which only led men to do it justice, and which was in
accordance with moral truth.

In regard to another line of thought
which has been (curiously, as I must think)
urged as antagonistic to the doctrine of the
Incarnation, as the Church hath received the
same, including this subsidiary point which
we are considering — the theory or doctrine
of Evolution, I should like to refer to Bishop
H. M. Thompson's clever and eloquent use
of this very theory to illustrate the unique
character and person of Christ, in the fourth
of his "Bishop Paddock Lectures" on The
World and The Kingdom. "The Child in
the Manger" is the title of the lecture.
"There is a half truth (he says) in the
thought of those who imagine the Faith a
development. There is a half truth in every
falsehood. The Divine Religion has its

APPENDIX. 231

human side as well as its divine. The
* treasure,' in the largest sense, is in earthen
vessels. The environment for Christ and
for Christianity is developed in what we
blindly call the natural order, but the envir-
onment does not make Christ." The analogy
is perfect between His character and teach-
ing, and His Person.

III. I have already more than once hinted
at a part of the answer which I should make
to the last question, which it was proposed
to consider, — Cui bono ? What is the moral
value of a belief in the Virgin-Birth of
Christ ? Supposing it to be true, what does
a man lose who fails to accept it ? What re-
lation has it to conduct ? How can it be
counted among beliefs necessary to sal-
vation ?

i. The reply which has been already par-
tially anticipated is this. Truths have an
indirect as well as a direct value. Suppos-
ing some to be themselves without immedi-
ate bearing on life and conduct, they may
guard and protect other truths which have a

232 APPENDIX.

direct and tremendous moral import. For
instance, in this case, the Virgin-Birth I
should regard as an integral part of the true
doctrine of the Incarnation, as witnessing to
our Lord's unique Personality, His sinless
and representative manhood, His perfect
sacrifice.

2. Then, again, the analogy between our
Lord's Incarnate life and the spiritual life of
His people ought not to be overlooked. The
teaching of the New Testament writers, of
St. Paul more especially, taken up into the
devotional thought of the Church, and em-
bodied in much of our Prayer-Book lan-
guage, is that each mystery of the Lord's
Incarnate life has its counterpart in the
spiritual experience of the faithful. For us
He was born, that we might be reborn in
Him. For us He died, that with Him we
might die to sin and self. For us He rose
again, that in Him we might rise to newness
of life. And how was He born? ''Con-
ceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Vir-
gin Mary." It is the law of spiritual birth,
for the formation of Divine life within the

APPENDIX. 233

soul. "Not by might nor by power" — not
by human resources, or natural means, "but
by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."
From first to last our sanctification is the
work of the Holy Spirit, by His preventing
and assisting grace. No friend or minister
can do more than Gabriel did, or Joseph —
announce God's message, to which the soul
must itself respond with self-surrender, that
the Spirit may accomplish His work, and
then guard the life of grace which has been
by His overshadowing communicated.

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